Almost immediately word flashed on the internet and was picked up,half a world away,by John Hofsess.

本句中的word 意为消息、信息。词典说是单数名词，但词典例句显示这个意义的word可用定冠词或零冠词。本句用的是零冠词。

本句的word为主语，后接二个谓语动词，flashed and was picked up by sb. 消息迅速在网上传播，并被John Hofsess收到。被动语态was picked up和施事者状语by sb，句子结构已经完整，by和up之间再插入一个成分，只能是状语。因此这个结构一定是副词性结构。half a world away是一个副词短语作地点状语。本来这个状语应该放在句末，但由于原文中John Hofsess后有一个比较长的同位语，所以地点状语插到了方式状语之前了，且前后用逗号隔开。原文如下：

Almost immediately word flashed on the Internet and was picked up, half a world away, by John Hofsess, the director of the Right to Die Society of Canada.

如果没有这个同位语，通常地点状语应该在by+施事者之后：

Almost immediately word flashed on the Internet and was picked up by John Hofsess half a world away.