The Roanoke Times to sell its New River bureau building, move to new location

Posted September 5, 2012

The New River Valley bureau of The Roanoke Times

4 Comments »

Would love to see them lease space in downtown Blacksburg at either Kent Square – great access to the emerging cultural district, parking, events…or perhaps the Gateway Office Building at Prices Fork and University City Boulevard…again great access to the region. Both offering new, high quality office space and the most upgraded digital services around.

Comment by Local Color — September 6, 2012 @ 9:43 am
I would love to see actual news coverage in Blacksburg. I mean, pictures of some school dance or another news story about excited Hokies is always fascinating, but sometimes it would be really handy to get real news. Accident slowing traffic on 460? Good to know. That guy who stole a car and drove it into a house — who was he? Why did he do it? Crime spree? Robbery? West Nile Virus? I realize this is the *Roanoke* times, but I sure wish someone would report on (and follow up on) real local issues.

Comment by Mandy — September 7, 2012 @ 8:08 pm
Sorry, Mandy, but news hasn’t been important since the days of the Current. At the rate things are going, the “news” staff in the NRV will consist of reporters commuting from Roanoke and using the wifi at Starbucks as their “office.” Word is that the photographers have already had their base moved from 114 to Roanoke.

Comment by Pat N. Hall — September 10, 2012 @ 9:44 pm
Pat, thanks for your concern. However, I can report that 8 of the 9 journalists who primarily work on The Burgs live in the New River Valley. (And the other one lives just over the Floyd County line in Roanoke County.) And while our primary NRV photographer will soon start shooting some assignments in the Roanoke area, he still lives in Blacksburg and will continue to work most days in the New River Valley. It is true that the advent of wireless technology now allows our journalists to be much more mobile than in the past. In the Roanoke Valley, we have several journalists who routinely work out of coffee shops because that helps put them more in touch with the community than they would be if they were stuck in an office in downtown Roanoke. That’s one of the reasons that a brick-and-mortar office is less essential these days (although we still plan to keep an office in New River, just in a different location.)

– Dwayne Yancey, senior editor

Comment by Dwayne Yancey — September 13, 2012 @ 2:46 pm