To Our Readers

Time is a well-established title, but timeeurope.com Time Europe's dedicated website is a far younger editorial product. Given that the site (www.timeeurope.com) went live just over six months ago, we're especially pleased to have won the NetMedia European Online Journalism Award in two categories.

At a ceremony in London last week, timeeurope.com editor James Geary won in the science category for his online article about artificial intelligence What is Life?' and writer/associate producer Jeff Chu won in the best feature story category for his report on Russian democracy. The NetMedia awards were established in 1999 in recognition of the dramatic changes online publishing is making to journalism, and this year over 200 entries from 16 European countries were received.

Practicing journalism at the speed of bytes offers exciting opportunities for an established brand like Time. Jeff Chu's piece on Russian democracy, for example, is what we call a Time Trail, an article about a specific issue that contains hyperlinks to Time's previous coverage of that same issue. Chu's analysis of Russian President Vladimir Putin's election victory last March is enhanced by links to relevant Time stories dating back to the late 1980s.

"The Web enables us to tell stories in creative and original ways," says Chu, "not only with words and pictures but also with hyperlinks and multimedia." Adds information manager Michael Brunton, who heads our Web research team, "With Time Trails we blow the dust off our bound volumes, and bring the past back to life while providing context to today's news."

The timeeurope.com site also features breaking news, online stories that expand on print stories as well as articles produced exclusively for the Web all reported and written by the same far-flung network of correspondents that contribute to the weekly magazine. "We produce online stories with the same on-the-ground reporting and great writing as the magazine," says timeeurope.com producer Tim Morrison, who is responsible for the site's design and technical realization. "But on the Web we're able to take advantage of breaking news and publish stories within hours rather than days."

This blend of classic journalistic values with new media is literally embodied in our London office: our Web team is ensconced in a room lined with volume after volume of the printed magazine, stretching all the way back to the mid-1920s. "Timeeurope.com combines the best of two worlds," says editor Geary. "The history and journalistic traditions of the magazine with the enhanced story-telling capabilities of the Web."

And it's the stories that matter technology just provides us with new ways to tell those tales. We trust our readers will join us online as we put the storytelling skills of Time in-depth reporting, colorful writing and insightful analysis to work on the Web.
, Editor, TIME Atlantic