THE RECENT TRAGEDIES of the bridge collapse in the Twin Cities and the killings at Virginia Tech were not only a test of how well 2007 journalists can still break news. They also were a moment when the new tools of the Web stepped forward as indispensable.

Storytelling, as we knew it, has forever changed. In fact, one observer, Lou Ferrara of The Associated Press, saw the use of one technique, citizen-contributed content, increase dramatically between events in Virginia Tech and Minnesota.

So in the first-ever online-only edition of The American Editor, we examine the changing landscape of our newspapers and how our — dare we say it — information centers are handling the changes and making our work more valuable than ever.

We are getting better at video, audio, Flash presentations and social networking. It isn’t easy, as Kate Parry’s intriguing details make clear in her riveting tale of the night of the bridge collapse in the Star Tribune newsroom in Minneapolis. As television stations went live immediately, journalists at the Star Tribune and the St. Paul (Minn.) Pioneer Press began to fashion coverage that went beyond the talking heads. Print deadlines competed with online demands. Databases about bridges became as important as live interviews. The stunning photos in our opening presentation give us all a taste of it.

At The Roanoke (Va.) Times, Editor Carole Tarrant and team kept the national story local as a key to its distinctive coverage. Static words and photos weren’t the storytelling tools of choice for the team, including Seth Gitner. In this edition, he uses multimedia tools to tell us about, well, multimedia tools.

The meta-message of his report is echoed in other content in the online magazine:

• Mark Zieman of the Kansas City (Mo.) Star exhorts us to make sure we understand that news drives Web traffic.
• Kurt Greenbaum of the St. Louis (Mo.) Post-Dispatch wonders about how we should be playing national and international news on the Web.
• Our legal expert Kevin Goldberg discusses whether online reporters are the same as print reporters in the eyes of the law.
• Prof. Katy Culver and students at the University of Wisconsin - Madison prepare us with tips and ethical exercises for the next wave of multimedia innovation as Election 2008 approaches.

Lest you think your editors have gone over the Web deep end, we are happy to report that our many other columns and articles look at nondigital issues facing us: Edward Miller, in his management column, takes a look at the value of disaster preparedness in newsrooms; Jody Calendar updates us on awards, honors and trends in her new column; and Libby Averyt, editor and vice president at the Corpus Christi (Texas) Caller-Times, gives us an update on what it is like to be one of the test papers for The Learning Newsroom.

With this issue we also add a page on books — the ink-on-paper kind. This user-developed feature allows members or their friends to upload news of their books and even include reader reviews.

We have noticed that while we are seeing an increase in traffic, our membership is not using the comment function as a way to share ideas or refute arguments. We have disabled the log in apparatus to make it easier for us to talk amongst ourselves. In any case, we’d love to hear your thoughts on whether an online edition is an experiment worth repeating. Send your comments to ASNE. Next edition we go back to the paper version.

The future for The American Editor appears to hold some sort of digital communication paired with a print version. We may not have it quite right just yet, but we hope with your suggestions, we will turn the corner soon.

Ellen M. Foley Wisconsin State Journal Madison, Wis. co-chair/online	Kenneth E. Tingley The Post-Star Glens Falls, N.Y. co-chair/print