Generous examples differentiate this book from the rest and make it well worth a look. Every author instructs us to use more boldface text and more bulleted lists online (for easy scanning), but the Prices (both freelance Web editors and writers) deliver clear "before" and "after" examples, side by side, to illustrate why these things actually work.

Another strong point: Chapter 14, "Making News That Fits" (pages 373-402). Example: "Postpone the date, location, and even the participants, if they are not central to the story. You can get to them in the second graf. So on the Web the pyramid is right side up, with just the point showing, at the top" (pages 375-76). The authors discuss e-mail newsletters, Weblogs and Web zines, which most traditional journalism texts (so far) ignore.

A book filled with good tips can be very useful for practitioners, but without a traditional topic structure for chapters, it may not work as a student textbook. Pages 85-269 of this book supply fabulous tips (and lots of examples) about how to write appropriately for online media: "When guests click the title in a menu or search list, they expect to see that very same title appear at the top of the page. Don't get creative. Writing different versions of the title confuses people and makes them reach for the Back button, thinking they made a mistake and came to the wrong page" (page 115).

The book says nothing about reporting or gathering information from online sources, and the chapter structure would not lend itself easily to reading assignments in a typical undergraduate course. Other than chapters 14 and 15 (Web zines), there is little specific to journalism.

Bottom line: Definitely a useful book for anyone teaching (or practicing) online journalism, but not ideal for students as the primary text in a journalism course.

To "Telling the Story..."