An article on the Palladium-Item website today announced the first live chat hosted by the paper's online presence, scheduled for 9 PM this Thursday to coincide with the Vice Presidential debate.  The chat service is powered by the site CoverItLive.com, used by a number of other prominent media outlets for chat services, including Newsweek Magazine.

The chat offered by the paper appears to be tied to event-specific, pre-determined time periods instead of available on an ongoing basis.  We've covered the availability of the always-available and free Live-Richmond.com chat room here, including in episodes 14 and 24.

If you try out this new offering on Thursday night, let us know what you think by posting a comment below!

Palladium-Item Online Editor Jason Truitt has announced that as of today, the paper will be holding the comments posted in its online discussion forums to the same standard it uses for letters published in its print edition, at least when it comes to personal attacks:

"We've been having discussions at the P-I for a little while now about what changes we might want to make to the way we run these forums. We've heard the feedback from some of you as well as other people in the community about the level of conversation in the forums, and quite frankly, our own concerns have been growing...

Content for letters to the editor is held to a much higher standard in order to be published than forum posts have been. As of today, that will no longer be the case. From now on, whenever we have a question about whether a comment should be allowed to stand, the question we'll ask is, "Would we allow this to be printed in a letter to the editor?" If the answer is "no," the comment will be deleted from these forums. If the answer is "yes," the comment stays."

You can read Jason's full announcement and the discussion/reaction that follows. We interviewed Jason about this issue and others facing the paper in RNR Episode #22.

Palladium-Item Viewpoints Editor Dale McConnaughay announced today that the Pal-Item is ending its "open-invitation format" for the public to attend its editorial board meetings. McConnaughay cites the difficulty in keeping the group on track within an allotted time period when the meetings have to accommodate sometimes lengthy and unplanned discussions with those who happen to attend in a given week.

As a part of the announcement, McConnaughay clarifies that anyone who wishes to attend can still contact him to schedule a visit, and the group's agenda will still be sent out in advance as it has been. The board is also expanding the number of community members on the board to eight. Read McConnaughay's full announcement.