One year after the Virginia Tech shootings,
The Roanoke (Va.) Times is taking a different approach to the anniversary story: producing a live multimedia project that is evolving as the campus recalls the tragedy.
A reporter is blogging at the location of the school's memorial candle, which will burn for 24 hours. Other reporters are roving the campus with cameras and audio recorders.
Roanoke Times journalists have been stationed on campus since 9:30 p.m. Tuesday and will stay there until midday Thursday, producing and publishing everything as they get it.
Their stories are being posted on the paper's
"One Year Later" Web site, which includes videos from last night's candlelight vigil as well as interviews with students about the anniversary of the shooting that killed 32 people. The site also features a Google Map featuring the work of reporters, photographers, videographers and producers.
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http://blogs.roanoke.com/oneyearlater/ |
It's become a newsroom effort, with many reporters serving as roving storytellers, said Meg Martin, a multimedia producer for roanoke.com and former Naughton fellow at The Poynter Institute. She noted that the idea for the project came from
Roanoke's
multimedia editor, Seth Gitner.
"Our goal is to tell the story of April 16, 2008, as a series of vignettes, scenes -- moments," said Martin. "We're using video, audio, photography and text to do this, so that each story can be told in the best way possible. We're mapping these vignettes and adding them to a micro-site in chronology so folks can access them in multiple ways."
Roanoke Times online editor John Jackson has been helping to guide the production process from the field. "This has really sort of become our mini bureau out here," he said Wednesday morning.
Jackson sent an e-mail to journalists in other organizations yesterday asking them to send links to their own coverage, in part so that
The Roanoke Times can be a one-stop shop for news about the anniversary. He encouraged them to link to the "One Year Later" site on their Digg and Del.icio.us pages.
"In the end," he said, this "'day in the life' project will be a true team effort utilizing all of the resources available to cover a story that continues to affect this region, and the nation, every day."
Here are some highlights from the project:
