Fast and accurate

A local TV station broke into regular programming shortly after noon Dec. 30 to report that two HRT busses had been stopped at the entrance to Norfolk Naval Base in response to a telephoned bomb threat. They were first out of the blocks, but it wasn't long before the Pilot newsroom had overtaken them and left them behind.

Kate Wiltrout, Tim McGlone and Matthew Roy and Norfolk Editor Meredith Kruse quickly began to work the story. We posted a bulletin on the web site and e-mailed to 30,000 customers within minutes. The initial web report had been viewed 4,000 times in the first half-hour after it was published.

The newroom team updated the story seven -- yes, seven -- times during the next hour and a half and was first to report that FBI agents at the scene had determined that the incident was not a terrorist act and, later, that it had been a hoax.

Meanwhile, the TV station that first blurted out the news was still reporting on its Web site that a man had barracaded himself on one of the busses -- something that proved not to be true.

The newsroom team demonstrated how it's possible to report a breaking story quickly without compromising our high standards of accuracy.

And readers appreciated the result. It's now 7 p.m. and the online story has been viewed more than 14,000 times.