Powers might well be one of the first multimedia reporters to work for a Net-oriented daily newspaper. I asked her to share a few trade secrets. She said she interviewed people twice. The first time she gathered the basics for her regular story; the second time they spoke while tape rolled. Powers said she never knew which sounds would work out and which wouldn’t. A recording of a glorious waterfall ended up sounding like a toilet flushing. I asked about the challenge of balancing her traditional duties as a reporter with those as an audio-oriented interviewer. Some old hands in the _N & O_ newsroom saw the gadgetry as a threat. It was all too remindful of the days when computers were replacing typewriters in the newsroom, and many reporters and editors balked at being typesetters. But Powers turned the new technology to her advantage. The microphone and electronic camera—a photographer followed her around—made her more aware of her surroundings and sensitive to new story angles. Once she did a story on Ten Commandment Mountain. It was part of a Biblical theme park, a peak in western North Carolina with God’s words spelled out in “concrete letters each measuring five feet high and four feet wide.” A roar from a giant lawn mower kept drowning out the voice of the man she was interviewing. “They always ask,” he volunteered, “how do you mow that mountain?” Presto, she had the magic quote to use near the lead. “A special mower with a low center of gravity,” she revealed, “tilts and leans up and down the steep planes.” Whether reading about twenty-five-cent hamburgers or godly peaks, I could scoot easily between pictures and words. The _N & O_ had a “North Carolina Discoveries” logo at the top of one page, a picture of Powers in the same area, and then a list of the Discoveries stories that she had done. By clicking my mouse on a list of story headlines in blue letters, I could immediately go to the stories. When I chose “Home Sweet Hangar,” I sped to the same headline atop a color photo of an aviation buff inspecting “his Cessna 172 after rolling it out of the hangar at his house in Lake Norman Airpark.” Yes, the caption was there too. And then I saw the story lead with an apt quote (“It’s like being an avid golfer and living on the golf course”) followed by a list of other items. I could choose “Audio: Talking about life on the flight line” if I wanted to hear an interview. What’s more, if I’d set up my software, I could even have picked “Video” and gone on to a list of short movies. I also saw background items such as a list of “Triangle-area flight schools” and “FAA regulations: How to get your pilot’s license.” The beauty of this arrangement was that the _N & O_ could provide all kinds of wonderful details for the interested without inflicting them on others. Unless they mouse-clicked the appropriate words in blue letters (or whatever the special color), they would never see the material.