We celebrated journalism — and The Roanoke Times’ journalists who produce it — Thursday when we had handed out our annual in-house Landmark Awards (named after our parent company). As I’ve written in past years on this blog, it’s one of my favorite days of the year. First place winners earn $1,000 and second place winners get $250. These awards are based on a body of work from 2012, not just a single story or photo. In the writing categories, for instance, reporters had to submit 10 stories from last year. I’m also thankful for the judges — editors and professors from around the country noted with each category — who gave their time to pick our winners. Their comments are included here along with the list of winners. Click here to read about Ellen Moseley, the winner of our Rugaber Prize, which was also presented Thursday.

Judge — Pam Luecke, professor and head of the Department of Journalism and Mass Communications at Washington and Lee University

First place: Laurence Hammack | His reporting is deep and impressive, and the entry included several instances of dogged pursuit of material through the use of Freedom of Information requests. Several of his pieces were advances of court cases but he consistently identified and developed thoroughly a fascinating angle.  He also displays a knack for telling a story in a way that holds the reader’s interest and doesn’t get bogged down by his considerable interviews and documents.

Second place: Chase Purdy | His ledes crackle. His entry included several court-based stories, and he too marshaled the facts of the cases into highly readable narratives.

Features reporting and writing

Judges Tom Popson and Denise Joyce. Popson and Joyce both retired after long careers working as editors in the Chicago Tribune features department.

First place: Dan Casey | He comes across as a champion of the little guy; he spins a good yarn while providing “who knew?” information.  What caught our attention with Dan, a columnist, was his willingness to pick up the phone rather than just commenting on the story at hand.

Second place: Ralph Berrier |Love letters hidden in a shotgun, a donkey with a prosthetic leg, a profusion of valedictorians, a collector of old phonographs — an eclectic assortment of topics indeed, and all handled adeptly by Ralph.

Sports reporting and writing

Judge: Kevin Winters Morriss, assistant sports editor for the Salt Lake Tribune.

First place: Mark Taylor | I liked his style and the rhythm he established in his columns and stories. He does a good job of painting a picture of what’s happening and makes the reader feel like he or she is part of the story. His outdoors columns invite the reader to share in the adventure instead of preaching about the outdoors. Some of his observations that he injects into stories help feed that feeling of being a part of the story.

Second place: Andy Bitter | I really enjoyed his storytelling on the Worsham story. It kept my attention by sharing a lot of minor details that make the story strong. It’s obvious a lot of time went into telling the story. I also liked that he showed he’s able to go beyond game coverage with the Exum story. It’s a neat little read.

Read more »

Ellen Moseley, an editor and project manager in the newsroom, is the winner of this year’s Rugaber Prize (named after former publisher Walter Rugaber), awarded annually to a staff member in our newsroom whose work in the previous year “displayed, day in and day out, an intense curiosity, a depth of understanding, and an enterprising drive to discover unique and significant stories.” (Click here for a full list of awards presented Thursday.)

For the past year, Moseley (pictured accepting the award from Publisher Debbie Meade and Editor Carole Tarrant) has dedicated her work life to helping us launch a new content management system and redesign roanoke.com. We rolled out the beta version of our new Web site several months ago and we continue to tweak and enhance it every day.

Moseley joined The Roanoke Times in 2001 as the newsroom office manager and quickly developed a passion for journalism. She’s worked as a designer, a copy editor, copy desk team leader, and now as the project manager for the Web site. In presenting the award to Moseley on Thursday, editor Carole Tarrant noted that Moseley’s varied career has prepared her for the challenges facing journalism as we continue to evolve in the digital age.

“Our awardee started out her professional life as a teacher, then took on the sorry task of trying to manage this newsroom. She’s adapted many more times since then, but I believe she’s now found her home, one where she can contribute fully to us building that audience and ensuring The Roanoke Times arrives on our doorsteps, on our iPads, on our phones or, who knows – Google glasses – next.”

We’ve awarded the Rugaber Prize since 2000. Previous winners are:

2000 Dwayne Yancey

2001 Josh Meltzer

2002 Mike Allen

2003 Kelly Hahn Johnson

2004 Wayne Deel

2005 Seth Gitner

2006 Rob Lundsford

2007 Laurence Hammack

2008 Tad Dickens

2009 Cathy Benson

2010 Stephanie Ogilive

2011 Brian Kelley

Editorial writer Michael Sluss

This week, longtime reporter Michael Sluss joined The Roanoke Times editorial board after covering state politics for more than 12 years. As an opinion writer, he expects to focus on state issues and the New River Valley, among other topics. Get to know him better with our latest Q&A …

Michael Sluss
@MichaelSlussRT

Hometown: Warrenton, Virginia

College, major: Radford University, political science

Years in journalism: 20-plus. I worked for six years at The Fauquier Citizen, a community paper in Warrenton, before coming to The Roanoke Times in 1998.

Years at The Roanoke Times | roanoke.com: Nearly 15. But I’ve never worked in Roanoke until now. I started in our New River Valley Bureau, where I covered police and courts for a year and higher education for about 15 months. In December 2000, I moved to Richmond to cover state government and politics. After 13 General Assembly sessions, three governor’s races, three U.S. Senate races, and more legislative elections than I care to count, I’m happy to be back in Southwest Virginia.

Journalists you admire and why: I was lucky to get to follow some great reporters on the statehouse beat for The Roanoke Times, including the legendary Melville “Buster” Carico, Margie Fisher and Christina Nuckols, now our editorial page editor. Their high standards were always motivating for me.

Websites you visit regularly: As a state news junkie, I highly recommend the Virginia Public Access Project’s (vpap.org) daily compilation of Virginia news clips. I grew up reading The Washington Post and still visit the site regularly, especially to follow Redskins and Capitals coverage. As an over-the-hill runner, I really like what flotrack.org has done to build some excitement around running and track and field. And Twitter is a useful doorway to news and information that might otherwise be off my radar screen. (Follow him at @MichaelSlussRT.)

Favorite books: Too many to single out one or two. So I’ll use this space to plug “If Trouble Don’t Kill Me” by Ralph Berrier Jr. and “When Hell Froze Over” by Dwayne Yancey.

Interests outside of work: I’m looking forward to getting reacquainted with the great outdoor recreation spots in this region, and to resuming a regular running routine. And now that spring is here, I’ll be rooting for the Baltimore Orioles.

It was time to celebrate Thursday night as employees involved in the roanoke.com redesign gathered at Roanoke’s Shenandoah Club.  Danielle Dunaway photographed the night’s events.

The list of RT employees involved in the redesign, which began in earnest in summer 2011 with “Project Gateway,” is long and likely not complete. That’s because it’s hard to find someone in the company who didn’t somehow offer support in some way for this effort.

But here’s the official list (with a shoutout to former online editor Meg Martin, who’s an ex officio member of this team). These folks served on more than a half dozen teams that looked at design, user engagement, our new digital-first workflow and that critical infrastructure. (Thanks, IT team!)

Alison O’Brien, Amanda Codispoti, Andrew Crater, Andrew Svec, Angela Campbell, Brian Kelley, Brian Thomas, Caitlin Saniga, Christina Nuckols, Craig Slomczewski, Dale Alexander, Dan Wheeler, Dana Bailey, Danielle Dunaway, Dwayne Yancey, Ellen Moseley, Erica Myatt, Gary Eanes, Grant Jedlinsky, Greg Ludwick, Jess Hoch, Karenna Glover, Kathy Lu, Katrina Waugh, Keith Liles, Kyle Draper, Lee Crawford, Lindsey Nair, Luda Nichols, Marie Stewart, Mark Shaver, Mary-Chris Hirsch, Matt Baumann, Matt Chittum, Michael Stowe, Mike DiFerdinando, Mike Guntlow, Natalee Waters, Nona Nelson, Patrick Hornby, Ralph Berrier, Ryan Loew, Katrina Tulloch, Stefan Babich, Stephanie Ogilvie, Suzanne Wardle, Tom Fraticelli, Tracy Brown, Wendy Kelley

Look for the yellow “Feedback” tab on the right side of the screen.

Your feedback has been a vital part of the development of the new roanoke.com. Your comments on the RefreshRT blog helped shape a lot of the decisions we made for the new design. And to continue the conversation, we have a new feedback tool that we hope you will use to tell us what you think about the new site, notify us when things aren’t working, etc.

With this tool, you can easily see posts from other users. If they propose an idea that you like, the tool lets you give it a thumbs up (or down). You also can see the status of issues we’re working on.

Here are some basic instructions, which are also found within the feedback tool’s support community.

Posting:

1) Click on the yellow “Feedback” tab on the right side of the beta site’s screen. A window with a white box, titled “Submit your feedback to us,” will pop up.

2) In this box, type in your idea, question, bug or praise and then click “Next.”  (An auto-fill function may bring up similar questions — just keep typing if yours isn’t the same.)

3) Click the “Post in” drop-down to indicate whether your post is a question, idea, praise or bug.

4) Your post will be monitored and answered, if needed, by a member of our feedback team.

5) To exit the window, click on the X at the top right-hand corner.

Voting:

We encourage you to look at the other topics and vote for posts that you’d also like to see addressed or agree/disagree with. Simply hover over the topic and move your cursor over the “Show votes” number. Click on the up or down arrows to vote for or against a topic.

A few final points:

• The beta site is under construction, so there will be some pages that looked unfinished or incomplete. Still, please let us know if you come across a page that you feel needs our attention.

• For the latest updates on the new site, visit this Times Square post.

• If you prefer a stripped-down version of the site (just headlines), you can always use m.roanoke.com.

Thank you for contributing,

The Feedback Team

Find our new site at beta.roanoke.com.

The big day is here ­– we’re ready to give you an early peek at the new roanoke.com as we build out its final stages.  But before you click the link, we’d like to remind you that you’ll be checking out a beta version of our new website.

What’s beta mean exactly? Well, you’ll be looking at a site in development. Think of it as house being built before your eyes – we’ve framed it out and are hanging drywall, moving in appliances and bringing in furniture every day.

It’s a work in progress, so please pardon our dust as you come across sections shy on new content or tools that don’t quite work yet. In some cases, you’ll click through to the old site as we convert our content to the new format.

We’ll update this post with what we’re working on and encourage you to check back often to see our progress.

As we go, we hope you’ll continue to provide feedback – a conversation we began a year ago on the RefreshRT blog.

We now have new interactive feedback tool where you can not only share your comments but rate those made by others.

We’ve also produced a short video to give you a sense of what was important to us as we rebuilt the site.

On behalf of the many Roanoke Times/roanoke.com employees hard at work on this project, I’d like to thank you for contributing your ideas and helping the new site grow into an important community resource.

Carole Tarrant

Editor

What we’re working on* today includes:

(Updated 02.07.13)

• Browser compatibility (Advice for iPad/iPhone users)
  

• Story-sharing tools

• RSS feeds

• Story archive prior to Feb. 4, 2013

• Embedded video  (see http://beta.roanoke.com/multimedia/video/)

• Search

• Design of weather info in right rail 

• Caching issues (Advice for “Service unavailable” message)
• Commenting on select stories

*Items on our punch list may not be working or may change in appearance as developers test them. Thanks for your patience!

For many folks across The Roanoke Times, 2012 was dominated by redesigning — and re-imagining — roanoke.com.

During our annual newsroom staff meeting Wednesday, editor Carole Tarrant and multimedia producer Ryan Loew presented this 8-minute video, which took a quick look back at our highlights of 2012.

But more importantly, you’ll hear our top editors and staffers look ahead to the redesigned website, which we hope to unveil next week. Enjoy!

Digital intern Katrina Tulloch (front) learns the new CMS in the Roanoke Times “training bunker.”

You may have seen the sneak peek of the new roanoke.com (set to debut in the next few weeks) … maybe even signed up to be a beta tester.

What you might not know is that our entire content management system is changing with the new design.

As an online producer, I’m just as excited about this new CMS as the new look for the simple reason that it should make getting news and photos on the website easier and faster.

But first, we have to learn this new system, and that’s what we’ll be working on in the Roanoke Times “training bunker” up until site launch.

Led by project manager Ellen Moseley, the core online team spent most of last week learning how to post and display stories, photos and more. This week, many of our editors will do the same.

Project manager Ellen Moseley is leading the newsroom’s intense training.

The intense training definitely puts a burden on our already overstuffed schedules, but it’s an exciting time critical to our digital future.

We can’t wait to show you the results!

FAMILY PORTRAIT: Our blog team braves the chilly temps on The Roanoke Times roof deck before our pizza lunch, where we discussed our commenting guidelines.

BACK ROW (from left): Mark Taylor, Doug Doughty, Kevin Myatt, Aaron McFarling, Ray Cox, Matt Chittum, Dwayne Yancey, David Verde, Robert Anderson, and Michael Stowe.

MIDDLE ROW (from left): Andy Bitter, Mike Allen, Tad Dickens, Steve Hemphill, Dan Casey, Christina Nuckols, Danielle Dunaway, and Mark Berman.

FRONT ROW (from left): Lindsey Nair, Rebecca Holland, Amanda Codispoti, Mary Hardbarger, Karen Hager, Annie McCallum, Stephanie Ogilvie, and Dana Bailey.

Photo by Rebecca Barnett | The Roanoke Times

**********************************

A rare event happened at The Roanoke Times today: All of our bloggers came together in one place for a pizza lunch, where editor Carole Tarrant discussed some blogging rules and tips before we roll out our redesigned website in January.

One of the top agenda items was to brief us on our commenting mission and some FAQs that will help explain our process.

Please read them over and let us know if you have any questions: Are they clear? Are we missing anything you might be curious about?

**********************************

To summarize:

The Roanoke Times welcomes your comments on our blogs, but there are some rules of the road. If you want to post here: Keep your language clean and your comments on topic. Don’t defame another’s reputation. Don’t threaten, harass or intimidate another individual. In a phrase: be civil. Our detailed rules are available for reading here.

FAQs

What is our commenting philosophy and mission?
We want to offer a forum to readers — and host conversations about what’s going on across our valleys. Our aim is to provide a cordial, constructive, safe place to chat, like a digital front porch. We want comments to help improve the quality of our journalism and our community. We allow anonymous comments (with registration through our blogs) — but moderate for civility.

Why don’t comments appear on every story?
Because we take the time to moderate comments, we have to make choices about which stories to build conversations around.

Why do we direct comments to our blogs?
Years ago, we made the decision to host conversations about our stories on the blogs. They are hosted by real, live human beings whose presence, we believe, can have a positive impact on online conversations. Because the bloggers moderate the comments and engage with readers there, we wanted to continue that tradition with the redesigned website.

How do we select stories for comments? Can readers suggest a comment thread?
Our editors and reporters decide which stories might spark the most constructive conversations. We encourage readers to suggest a comment thread on our Times Square blog.

Who moderates the comments?
Our individual bloggers moderate the bulk of the comments, with occasional moderation by online producers and editors.

Why might there be a lag time between the time I post a comment and when it appears on the blog?
We at The Roanoke Times are committed to creating cordial forums for discussion where people can express their feelings on controversial topics without opening themselves to personal attacks. That commitment takes a great deal of effort on the part of our staff. We do not rely on a computer program that can magically discern whether a commenter is being naughty or nice. Real people make that determination.

Moderating the blogs is not a task relegated to normal business hours. We do our best to check in regularly on evenings and weekends and even major holidays. That said, it’s not possible for us to be on the alert 24/7. We sleep, have dinner with our families and try not to annoy people in the next row when we go to see a movie.
  
What are some reasons why my comment might be rejected?
Blog posts that contain profanity, obscenities, potentially libelous statements or personal attacks on other commenters or individuals in the news will be rejected. Public officials open themselves to a greater level of criticism and that is reflected in our moderation. However, petty name-calling is never appropriate.

It’s best when posting comments on the blog to write about your opinions on a particular subject rather than commenting on the quality of the arguments made by those with an opposing view. However, in a true public forum everyone must expect to be challenged. While personal attacks are banned, that doesn’t extend to every form of criticism. Even so, that criticism should be tied to the issue being debated. It’s appropriate to tell another commenter, “You haven’t done your research,” but inappropriate to say, “You are an idiot.”

Why do the rules of engagement seem to change from blog to blog?
Each blog is moderated by a different human being. In some cases, several moderators share in the task. While we have a single policy to guide us on what is and is not appropriate, there are always comments that require a judgment call, and different people will respond differently. Moderators also are guided by the subject matter and mission of their specific blogs.

For example, the conversation will naturally get heated on The RoundTable, a forum for exchanging views on politics and often controversial issues. The debate on The Fridge Magnet is typically less confrontational.

Trib Nation manager James Janega

So where did the Times Square idea come from?

Much was inspired by the work of James Janega and his Trib Nation blog at The Chicago Tribune, which I learned about through a helpful Poynter Institute journalism webinar on social media (find my top takeaways from Janega’s presentation here).

I spoke with Janega over the phone this week to ask him some questions about their blog’s approach and for some success stories we might steal. He was enthusiastic, outgoing and helpful — which shows why he’s a natural blog host and reader advocate. Here are some highlights from our lively conversation:

What’s the Trib Nation backstory?

The Tribune was perceived as an unresponsive monolith, Janega says — readers didn’t have an easy way to pitch a story or get customer complaints resolved. The blog was created a couple of years ago to get them closer to their audience. It’s also a place to explain the company’s decisions and “inside story.”

Some of our top goals for the upcoming roanoke.com redesign were exactly the same: How could we streamline the process for suggesting stories and sharing photos? How can we make our journalists more accessible? How could we make it easier for readers to engage with us through comments and social media? How can we “put the community out front,” as editor Carole Tarrant puts it. Our redesign’s aim is to provide a more user-friendly experience, and Times Square is the place for the ongoing conversations.

Growing beyond the digital: Should we host community lunches?

What impresses me most about Trib Nation is the hundreds of events the news company offers every year: Literary events, social media seminars, cooking classes, meetups at the ballpark, the list goes on. All of these events started after the success of the Tribune’s monthly community conversation lunches.

Janega urges us to hold these lunches at least once a quarter. What do they involve? Their team picks a subject area to focus on. Past examples include personal finance, fitness and education. The lunches are free and open to the public, but they invite critical community connectors and thought leaders: “People who can connect us to sources,” Janega say. Why does he think these are worthwhile? Because he’s always surprised by the story ideas that come out of them.

I love the idea of breaking out from behind the computer and meeting readers. Social media is wonderful way to connect, but nothing beats a handshake and a face-to-face conversation to really make that connection meaningful. I’ve mulled the idea of informal meetups and creating a real Roanoke “Times Square” after attending the CityWorks (X)po in October.

Perhaps we can make some of these ideas a reality. You can help by letting us know your thoughts: Do you find face-to-face events appealing?

Focus on your questions

While Times Square is a place to share Roanoke Times promotions and company information, Janega urges us to focus on what readers might be curious about: How do we choose a Page 1 photo, for example?

I’ll be on the lookout for opportunities to share some behind-the-scenes moments — and reach out of my newsroom comfort zone and get to know folks from across our company. To do some “bridge building,” as Janega puts it. So if you do have questions about our process or decisions, please share them in the comments. You can always email me at stephanie.ogilvie@roanoke.com.