One of the problems of a monthly magazine is the time it takes to print. Virginia Business is a glossy with high-quality paper and printing. We generally finish our editing by the middle of each month. We wait a week for our printer to deliver blueline proofs, our last fail-safe point for updates. Then we wait several more days for the magazine to be printed and bound. Several days later, the postman delivers it to our readers.

So, imagine my panic on April 25. It was 7:30 in the morning, and half of our May issue was literally on the printing press. I was in my car, driving to interviews in Lynchburg. The radio reported that General Dynamics had made a bid for arch-rival Newport News Shipbuilding, the topic of our May cover story. The merger news could undo several weeks of reporting. What to do?

Enter the Internet. I got on my cell phone and called Bob McFadden, our Web editor. He was already at work in our Richmond office as I was zipping past Appomattox. We agreed that we could post our story on our Web site and save at least some of our reporting. Shortly afterwards, I reached Publisher Jim Bacon who okayed the plan. Moving swiftly and surely, Jim, Bob and associate editor Leila Ugincius patched the breaking news into the story and loaded the article onto our Web page. They also moved it on Media General’s Newsbank, the company’s news service, so our sister publications could pick it up. With some help from our printers at Cadmus Mack, the trio even managed to catch the press run in time and have it replated so our May issue had the merger news — all this by 11 a.m.

This goes to show what a tremendous resource our Web site can be. We offer daily news headlines and lots of data on Virginia companies, economic trends, executives and past issues of the magazine. In the near future, Bob McFadden will unveil an online business directory that will be searchable by geography, industry classification and company size. Interested companies will be able to update their online profiles as needed, so the database will be constantly upgraded.

So, if you feel glum when you review your stock portfolio because of dot-com disasters, remember, the Net can be your friend. It sure was my friend on April 25.