Multimedia studio at TRT

Because The Roanoke Times is progressive and embraces multimedia, they've turned an old locker room into a studio where we are filming the TimesCast and other fun projects. [Read more about it.]
Some of you may know Bernie Dorrough, a grad student from Mizzou who graduates in August. Monday, he came to Roanoke to interview for an online producer job. I think he probably has a pretty good shot. The Mizzou mafia is officially at work when you let a fellow student sleep on an air mattress in your apartment.
Things are still going well in Virginia. The budget meetings at the Times are incredibly short. The editors run through a lot of stories and make decisions quickly. I've gone to several budget meetings and, in going along with the rapid-fire style, I spit out things we can do for online (message boards, polls) but never really pitch anything fantastic. I'm glad the paper gives consideration to online and gives us a chance to talk at buget, but the news cycle is pretty short. So we end up putting up polls and photo galleries without pushing much harder -- unless we know about a great online feature days or weeks in advance. Does anyone else have this problem?