Breaking News On Line

Last spring as I taught Introduction to Journalism, I decided to put the New York Times on the big screen because Eliot Spitzer was expected to resign as governor. As we waited, we watch Spitzer's car wind through the streets of New York. I was reminded of O.J. Simpson's Bronco on the freeways of California. Spitzer did finally appear and make his announcement before the bell rang. Now the Online News Association has chosen that coverage for an award:

Breaking News, Large Sites: NYTimes.com, Eliot Spitzer's resignation "The winner 'hit it out of the park.' The winner could have held the story but chose
not to. They broke the story on the Web and used the Web to keep it going. They
used the tools. For almost an entire news cycle nobody else had anything. It was
a remarkable story remarkably handled." http://nytimes.com/indexes/2008/03/10/