The world is listening

The story of the Mormon missionaries who were shot in Chesapeake is a reminder of just how much online reporting has changed local journalism. The Pilot's original story by Jim Washington, posted Monday night, quickly gathered over 20,000 page views, as word of the incident quickly spread through the Mormon community in Utah and around the world. The Pilot's reporting was linked the next day to several Web sites in Utah, including that of the Salt Lake Tribune in Salt Lake City. Every subsequent story on the tragedy has attracted large numbers of page views, most of them from people who are not regular Pilot readers.

The best evidence of the universal interest in the story, however, is PilotOnline's guestbook on the shooting, where more than 200 people -- some local and some from afar -- have posted their thoughts about the incident and shared condolences with the families of the victims.

On a story like this the boundaries of "local" stretch way out.