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How much has newspaper technology changed since 1957? For answers, look to a black-and-white documentary unearthed by WDBJ7 as part of their current series, "Headlines in Hard Times: How The Roanoke Times is weathering the storm." The two-parter, reported by veteran Joe Dashiell, concludes tonight at 6.

While gathering background, Dashiell came across the vintage 21-minute "Times-World at a Glance" documentary. In the newsroom today, we have gathered around to watch it and talk about how much has changed (you'll see more women on staff) and hasn't (newspaper production and delivery remains a labor-intensive process).

At the time the documentary was filmed, the two Roanoke newspapers -- Times and World-News -- covered 25 counties in western Virginia and nine in southern West Virginia, according to the M.W. Armistead III, then the president and publisher of Times-World Corp. Buses and trains were among the means we used to ship the papers as far as 200 miles away. 

In the film, Armistead boasts that the Times-World plant of 1957 is one of the most modern news-gathering facilities in the South. The grainy footage provides a tour of the print newsrooms, advertising and production facilities, all still located along downtown Roanoke's Campbell Avenue.

Halfway through, the focus shifts to WDBJ radio and television stations, which at the time were corporate siblings under the Times-World banner. That changed in 1969, when our current owners, Norfolk-based Landmark Media Enterprises LLC, bought the papers. Federal cross-ownership regulations required Landmark to sell the broadcast outlets.

We have more changes to announce at The Blue Ridge Business Journal, our bi-weekly business publication.
In the recent past, we’ve relied on freelance writers, and an editor who doubles as a reporter.
Now, all that’s changing.
A few weeks ago, we announced a new editor: Megan Schnabel, a veteran metro editor for The Roanoke Times and a former business reporter here, has taken over as the journal’s full-time editor.
She joined our long-time designer, Michele Crim, as we moved the journal’s operations into The Roanoke Times newsroom to work alongside the staff of the daily newspaper.
Now, we have more staff additions to announce:
* Annie Johnson is the journal’s reporter. She most recently has been a reporter for Congressional Quarterly in Washington, covering Capitol Hill. She knows her business stuff, too. Annie has a degree in economics from the former Randolph-Macon Woman’s College in Lynchburg (now just Randolph College.). She also previously worked as an intern on our business team for The Roanoke Times, and later worked here as an editorial assistant before going off to D.C. We’re thrilled to have her back.
* Michelle Skeen is the journal’s editorial assistant. She’s a graduate of Virginia Tech, and has interned for the daily newspaper in Waynesboro, the News-Virginian. Michelle will be spending a lot of her time working on the Business Journal’s website, which is presently undergoing a major renovation.
We’ll have more details on that coming soon. But if you’d like to follow business developments on Twitter, you can do that now. The Business Journal has its own Twitter following at “BRBusinessJ” and on Facebook, where can you find us simply as “Blue Ridge Business Journal.”

-- Dwayne Yancey, senior editor

If you're reaching this page after 11 p.m. on Saturday, Nov. 7, because you typed "roanoke.com" into your browser hoping to find today's breaking news, the latest from the Fort Hood shootings or election results, we're sorry.

You've been redirected to this post because, between 11 and 11:30 p.m. tonight, we'll be taking a few of our databases offline to perform some routine maintenance and backups.

Thanks for your patience. We'll be back online as usual by 11:30.

Till then, our stories, multimedia and calendar will be unavailable, but you'll be able to browse our blogs -- where you can recap Election Day news and analysis, find a recipe for Brunswick stew or discuss the 100 things restaurant staffers should never do at Lindsey Nair's Fridge Magnet blog, find out about holiday promotions and new shops arriving in town on Jenny Kincaid Boone's Storefront blog and recap this week's Virginia Tech game on Randy King and Doug Doughty's Insiders blog.

In the meantime, if you've got questions or comments, feel free to comment here on our From the Newsroom blog or e-mail me at meg.martin@roanoke.com.

-- Meg Martin, online editor

About a half dozen readers have called or e-mailed the past couple of days to ask why we didn't run precinct charts detailing this week's election results in Wednesday's newspaper. We decided not to publish those charts this year for a few reasons:

• We felt like we could make better use of the space they require (nearly two full pages) with more stories and photos;
• The time it takes to compile the charts often causes us to miss our newsroom deadline. And if we miss our deadline that starts a chain reaction that ends with readers getting their papers late;
• The information is available on the state board of elections Web site.

Let me know if you missed having the charts in print. There's an election every year in Virginia and I know the question will come up again.

Editor & Publisher posted a story this week listing the "top 25 newspapers with the largest increases in print and online audience based on designated market areas."

The Roanoke Times ranked in the Top 10 with a 6.3 percent increase. Check out the details here.

A reader sent me an e-mail recently accusing the newsroom of political bias in our coverage.

He pointed out how Democrat Creigh Deeds' photo ran above Republican Bob McDonnell's photo in a front-page story detailing the gubernatorial candidates plans for improving schools. Because of that placement, only Deeds' photo could be seen when the paper was folded in newspaper racks.

"You see, your liberal slant on everything makes all of us think that something as simple as this has a political reason," he wrote. "My entire Hardee's biscuit and coffee group this morning thought so."

He's right that only Deeds' mugshot -- a newspaper term for a small photo inset in a story -- was visible above the fold.

He's wrong about why it happened. That decision on which candidate's photo to place on top was made based on the candidates last names, not their political leanings.

Read more »

ROANOKE, Va. (October 5, 2009) — Megan Schnabel has been named editor of the Blue Ridge Business Journal (BRBJ), effective October 19.

Schnabel currently is a metro team leader for The Roanoke Times, owner of the BRBJ, with responsibility for coverage of public safety issues, courts and public integrity reporting. She is a 1995 graduate of Northwestern University's journalism school and joined The Roanoke Times as an intern in 1994. She was a business reporter for seven years, covering economic development, workplace issues and technology.

In 2002, Megan was promoted to assistant editor for The Current, gaining experience with the production of a niche tabloid product. In 2004, she joined the metro desk, where as team leader she directed notable coverage of such high-profile stories as the Alfred Dowe expense expenditures, the Henry County sheriff investigation and the federal prosecution of white supremacist Bill White.

In addition, Megan has served as the paper's point person on public records issues and serves as a regional Freedom of Information Act coordinator for the Virginia Press Association. She is also a 2007 graduate of the Batten Leadership Institute program at Hollins University.

The Blue Ridge Business Journal is a free bi-weekly business publication for the Southwest Virginia region, with nearly 16,000 subscribers.

Attention Virginia Tech fans: There's $2,500 in a Kroger gift cards on the line in our first-ever video contest. In 60 seconds or less, tell us why you are the primo Hokie fan. Break out that camera and send us a haiku, a rhyme, a tail-gating chant, whatever. We'll post it and then invite roanoke.com readers to vote on the best. Plus the editors will pick a wild card favorite, just to mix it up. Deadline is Sept. 30. Look for the details here.

Did you see the Patrick Henry/Hidden Valley high school football opener Friday night? If you missed PH's 44-14 win, check out the video highlights on our new VarsityCast page. Look for it to be updated Friday nights with live new content.

In addition to the weekly game highlights (shot by by multimedia producer Chris Zaluski), you'll find a real-time Twitter feed with Timesland scores and a chance to predict which teams will come out on top in the 2009 season. Look for the "Varsity Forecasters" box on the lower right of the page and see how your picks compare with those of Robert

Anderson, our prep sports editor. You have until 4 p.m. Friday to enter your picks.

Have any suggestions for how we cover high school football, in print or online? Leave them here or contact Robert at robert.anderson@roanoke.com

While you're browsing that VarsityCast page, also look for video of Robert's season preview and profiles of new coaches and top players to follow.

We had a lively discussion at our afternoon news meeting Wednesday about how we should display the news of Sen. Ted Kennedy's death on today's front page. Kennedy's death was announced by his family around 1:15 a.m. Wednesday morning, after our final deadline for Wednesday's paper had passed.

So, the news had been all over television and the Internet for more than 24 hours by the time our paper hit doorsteps this morning. A handful of editors in the room argued that his death was a huge national story and deserved traditional centerpiece display -- four columns wide with a large headline, photo, story, timeline -- on the front page.

Others argued that the timing of his death -- coupled with the fact that he had few local connections -- was good reason to play the story inside the paper.

As you can see here, we decided on somewhat of a middle ground: A large banner over the paper's flag announcing his death and directing readers to more coverage on pages three, four and five.

That alerted readers buying the paper in racks or stores to the coverage but also allowed us to give a nice display to local columnist Dan Casey's feature on Dave Asbury.

What do you think about how we played the story?