Passing variables between SWF files

I apologize if this has been asked and answered a thousand times, but I’ve spent the better part of an hour searching and haven’t found my answer, so here I am :wink:

I have a flash file that I made that displays a scrolling newsfeed (I’ll call it newsfeed.swf)… I published it to an SWF. Now, I created a new flash file that I would like to use to show many instances of newsfeed.swf. In my new flash file, I have the following code:

this.onLoad=function(){
mcNewsfeed.loadMovie(http://www.whatever.com/newsfeed.swf?s=MSFT);
}

In theory, when newsfeed.swf starts up, the ?s=MSFT variable should be passed in at the _root level such that I should be able to reference it and build the newsfeed to be displayed dynamically. I’ve tried several different things, but no matter what I do, the following code (the _root.s part) in newsfeed.swf returns “undefined”:

newsfeedURL = “http://finance.yahoo.com/rss/headline?s=” + _root.s

I would prefer to not have to pass XML files between the swf files or use system objects as that would add a level of complexity I’m not ready to deal with (I’m a total noob at this stuff)…

Can anyone help me get the two swf files to talk to each other nicely??

Thanks!:sen: