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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.

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 honored Doug Doughty, one of the top college sports beat writers in the country, on Wednesday to mark his 35th anniversary at The Roanoke Times.

Stats guy that he is, Doughty has to be thrilled to rank at the top of the newsroom's full-time tenure list. We gathered to share our favorite Doughty stories and to watch this video produced by Jordan Fifer.

Hired in 1974 to cover hockey, Doughty has covered University of Virginia athletics since 1978. Over the years, though, he's written about nearly every sport around and many other offbeat topics, including ferrets (watch the video to learn more).

He's won too many state and national awards to list and this year marked the 17th time he's taken either first or second place in our newsroom's annual Landmark Awards sports writing contest.

Doughty noted in a recent online column that he still has the same phone number as the day he started but that his desk has moved three times.

Doughty also pointed out that our Virginia Tech beat writer Randy King was working part-time as a high school senior when he was hired. King joined the paper full-time seven years later after graduating from Radford University and working for the Lynchburg newspaper.

-- Michael Stowe

This afternoon our newsroom said goodbye to a co-worker, friend, industry leader and truly original human being -- multimedia editor Seth Gitner. He's leaving for a teaching position at Syracuse University, where he'll train the next generation of multimedia journalists. Fans of our late great TimesCast will remember Seth for his "point-o-meter." Internally, we'll remember him for a variety of colorful stories, such as when his duck tape approach to getting the TimesCast on the air resulted in a blown fuse that took out a portion of our advertising department. We had a time. We wish you and your family well, Seth.

A few times a year, our newsroom targets an important issue or event and dedicates a small team to reporting it thoroughly in and print online. This year, you'll see such a team focus on the issue of underage drinking and its impact on Virginia college and university campuses.

Our new series, "Under 21," begins today with reporter Greg Esposito's overview of the Amethyst Initiative, the movement by academic leaders to reopen the drinking age debate. Look for new stories in "Under 21" each month through most of this year. And watch for the roanoke.com team to contribute with plenty of multimedia storytelling. 

In my print column today, I refer to a recent fatal alcohol poisoning at the University of Kansas. While doing research for this series, I came upon an excellent report about this incident by student journalists at Kansan.com. Called "A Shot of Reality," the project includes graphics, video, a quiz and a heartbreaking retelling of the death of student Jason Wren.

One story, "Excessive and accepted," looks at KU's drinking culture, "where where girls make 'shot books' on their 21st birthdays, taking 21 shots and keeping a page for each shot; where guys chug whole beers through beer bongs; where beer pong and other drinking games are commonplace at student parties; and where bar specials on weeknights bring students out in large numbers."

Do those scenes occur regularly at campuses in Southwest Virginia? And what do you think of reopening this debate? Is alcohol awareness education -- and not a lowered drinking age -- an effective way to discourage such excesses?

Let us know what you think. Our reporters want to hear from all perspectives as they undertake this series.

-- Carole Tarrant

The next installment of "JobQuest," the public television show on the job market in Western Virginia, will be Tuesday, April 14 at 7 p.m. It's produced by Blue Ridge PBS, with help from The Roanoke Times and several other media organizations and governmental and business groups.

One of the guests on the next show will be Chris Winston, editor of our New River Valley bureau. He'll talk about the job market in New River.

Here's a release from Blue Ridge PBS that talks about some of what the show has accomplished:

Read more »

Go behind the scenes at a photo shoot to see how photographer Jeanna Duerscherl created this photo illustration for the All-Timesland Swimmers of the Year feature that ran in Sunday's paper. You can get a peek behind the process in this video by Chris Zaluksi.

We're happy to spread the news that our 2008 series "Age of Uncertainty" garnered more recognition today, this time from the Scripps Howard Foundation National Journalism Awards. The multimedia series was named a finalist in Web reporting, just on the heels of it being recognized by POYi. The Scripps judges awarded first place in Web reporting to the Los Angeles Times for "Mexico Under Siege," a fascinating series that explores the escalating drug violence in Mexico. The site tells the story through the latest storytelling tools, including an interactive map and video Q&A. Congratulations to the latimes.com staff, and again to the team who produced "Age" for us here.  To see more examples of excellent journalism across the country, go to the complete list of 2008 Scripps winners, which includes honors for investigative, business and environmental reporting. FYI, while Scripps has been giving out awards since 1953, the Web reporting award debuted in 1999. The Roanoke Times and roanoke.com won the Web reporting award in 2005 for "Going Down the Crooked Road," a multimedia series exploring our region's bluegrass traditions.

Pictures of the Year International today named our 2008 series "Age of Uncertainty" as the documentary project of the year.  This honor is especially sweet because, as I wrote earlier this year , the series was a labor of love for many of us involved. We are taking care of our own relatives and seeing the challenges that lie ahead for the Roanoke Valley and its aging population.

My thanks to reporter Beth Macy and photojournalist Josh Meltzer (now on a Fulbright fellowship in Mexico) for telling these stories so beautifully and passionately. Many thanks, too, to multimedia editor Seth Gitner, who had the vision to build the online site as a long-lasting, interactive community resource.

These three were backed by a dedicated team of journalists who collaborated so well in print and online: Grant Jedlinsky, Alec Rooney, Tracy Boyer, Belinda Harris, Matt Chittum, Meg Martin, Terri Macklin, Dan Beatty, Dan Casey, Brian Kelley, John Jackson, Rob Lunsford and Andrew Svec. And while we're talking POYi, here's a big congrats to photojournalist Kyle Green, who won second place in the sports action category for his operatic photo at a boxing match.