Coverage of the Virginia Tech shootings demonstrates the marriage of new and old media -- the blog and the inverted pyramid.
That union of legacy and new media is on full display in the running news items posted on Roanoke.com, the Web site of The Roanoke Times, which is located about 40 miles from the campus.
Like blog items, the breaking-news items are written in reverse-chronological chunks, considered
the ideal form by web usability expert
Jakob Nielsen.
This new approach relies on an age-old journalistic form: the inverted pyramid. It's a classic structure, composed of a summary lead containing the most newsworthy element, followed by supporting evidence in order of importance with the least important at the bottom.
The traditional newspaper dateline is replaced by a time-stamp. Geography becomes less important than timeliness.
Such a blog approach also provides news sites the chance to address another classic paradigm used by news writers for decades: Five W's and an H.
The conventions of the inverted pyramid require the reporter to summarize the story, to get to the heart, to the point, to sum up quickly and concisely the answer to the question: What's the news? The pyramid approach addresses the most important questions at the top of the story. It states the thesis and then provides supporting material.
Notice how in selected excerpts from the Roanoke.com these and other useful features are evident:
Who, What, Where, When, How
3:43 p.m. [Tuesday, April 17]
Thousands of people came to Virginia Tech's Lane Stadium to watch the simulcast of the memorial convocation event in the neighboring Cassell Coliseum basketball arena. Many sat or stood on the field, while others sat in the stands. Some made their way into the normally expensive luxury boxes.
The stadium's giant video screen gave a clear view as President Bush, Gov. Kaine and others expressed their sorrow at Monday's deaths of 33 people on Tech campus in the worst mass shooting in U.S. history. The stadium's audio setup proved unequal to the task, however, and many of the speakers' remarks were unintelligible.
"I thought the sound was going to be pretty good. It's always pretty good for football," said Ryan Hewitt, a 23-year-old Tech senior from Swoope. Fortunately, Hewitt noted, the event was televised.
"I'm glad that I TiVo'd it so I could watch it later," he said.
But Nicole Goodwin, 22, a senior from Columbia, S.C., said she was glad to be there despite not being able to make out much of what was being said.
"It was good to have people come speak to us as a community," Goodwin said.
-- Reported by Ralph Berrier Jr.
A breaking-news blog can also acknowledge not all facts are known, with the expectation the facts will emerge later. It doesn't mean you have to know everything to write.
1:52 p.m. [Tuesday]
As Virginia State Police officers kept the crowd back along Blacksburg's Spring Street, a motorcade of about 10 black vans, accompanied by motorcycle police and a state police armored vehicle, whizzed by on the way to Cassell Coliseum. This likely was President Bush, said onlookers, or maybe the governor or senators. Or maybe all of them.
As soon as the motorcade turned behind the coliseum, police stepped back and the crowd sprinted for Lane Stadium, which is taking the massive overflow from the already-filled Cassell basketball arena.
At 2 p.m., a convocation to mourn the victims of Monday's shootings is to begin inside Cassell.
-- Reported by Ralph Berrier Jr.
A breaking-news blog can also be used to correct or comment on competing news stories.
12:32 p.m. [Tuesday]
Although CNN reported another death among the victims of Monday's shootings at Virginia Tech, area hospitals say no one else has died today.
The official death toll from the shootings remains at 33 people.
Eric Earnhart, spokesman for Carilion hospitals, said three victims remain at Carilion New River Valley Medical Center in stable condition. One of the victims taken to Carilion Roanoke Memorial Hospital died yesterday. Two remain at the hospital. One is listed in serious condition, the other as critical.
Suzanne Barnett, spokeswoman for Montgomery Regional Hospital, said nothing has changed at her facility or at Lewis-Gale Medical Center in Salem since the hospitals issued an 8 a.m. update. Nine victims remain at Montgomery Regional Hospital. All are in stable condition, including three who were in critical condition Monday night. Another three people are in stable condition at Lewis-Gale, and one of these is expected to be discharged today.
Montgomery Regional has scheduled another update between 2 p.m. and 3 p.m.
-- Reported by Tim Thornton
Items can be scene-setters.
Breaking-news posts need not abandon the value of sensory details.
12:01 p.m. [Tuesday]
At mid-day today, Blacksburg's South Main Street looks much the same as it always does.
Traffic is manageable. Businesses are open. But the flag at A Cleaner World drycleaner is at half mast.
Farther down the street, in downtown Blacksburg, it looks a little like a Virginia Tech Game Day. Plenty of students are crossing streets and walking along sidewalks. Almost every one of them is wearing an orange or maroon shirt or sweatshirt. Near Cassell Coliseum, there are marching band members on the sidewalk and more crowds of orange-and-maroon-clad students. [...]
-- Reported by Ralph Berrier Jr.
Unlike any other media form, online items can include links that transport readers to supplementary information.
11:26 a.m. [Tuesday]
Dateline correspondent and Virginia Tech grad Hoda Kotb's "Not at My Alma Mater" essay is here.
Breaking-news blog items can answer just one question, in this case one of the most significant: the identity of the victims. The Times used a post devoted exclusively to a list of victims. Nothing more needed to be said.
Storytelling has a place.
3:10 p.m. [Tuesday]
Freshman Dan Stoken was walking from class to the Schiffert Health Center about 9:45 a.m. when police officers in the doorway of West Ambler-Johnston Hall began yelling at him.
"Get inside! Run! Run!" they screamed as Stoken bolted for the dorm's double doors. Inside, a Blacksburg police officer grabbed his backpack and slid it across the room.
"I had no idea what was going on," Stoken said.
Within an hour, Stoken was joined by about 30 more students in the lobby of West Ambler-Johnston, most of them having been pulled from the sidewalk by police.
Senior Morgan Rezac said she saw police cars zip by as she walked from the gym to Deets to get coffee but figured someone had been hit by a car.
"I didn't think anything else could have happened," she said.
There's room for different leads beyond the summary graf. Here's a gallery lead. It shows that the same thing is happening in a variety of places, as with this trio of survivor stories.
2:53 p.m. [Tuesday]
Gene Cole has worked in Virginia Tech's housekeeping services for more than two decades. He was on the second floor of Norris Hall this morning and saw a person lying on a hallway floor. As Cole approached, a man wearing a hat and holding a black gun stepped into the hallway.
"Someone stepped out of a classroom and started shooting at me," Cole said.
He fled down the corridor, then down a flight of steps to safety. Most of this morning's casualties occurred in Norris.
"All I saw was blood in the hallways," Cole said.
Zac Ottoson, a freshman from southern New Jersey, had a class at 8 this morning, then got breakfast. He was on the Drillfield around 9:30 when he heard gunshots and sirens, and saw people running away from the Burruss Hall side of campus, where shootings had just occurred in Norris Hall.
Quiet and safety were among the reasons he chose Virginia Tech, Ottoson said. "It seemed like such a nice safe and friendly place to me. It really makes you think twice about how safe it is," he said.
