Tragedy struck the Brisbane suburb of Paddington this week when a young teenage girl was found murdered in her home.
Her body was discovered on Wednesday morning and news reports on online news sites were appearing rapidly soon after. This was a classic case where not much information was available to begin with and as a result news stories were added to and altered throughout the day.
On Wednesday afternoon I searched the story on the Courier Mail online site. This is the link I found.
However that afternoon the news story was significantly different to what appears there now. At the time when I first discovered the news report the main article consisted of a hand held video, possibly from a journalists' mobile phone, of a reporter explaining that a woman had been murdered but very little was known about what happened or who was involved. This video was clearly taken outside the Paddington home, with police cars in the background.
Later when I returned to the same link the video had been removed, and in its place is the article you see now. Fully researched with a number of sources and photos of the victim.
This is extremely fast thinking online journalism - even when Courier Mail reporters were not fully aware of the situation they were able to create a video that allowed them to 'break' the story first. When more information came to light they were able to update the story, so that readers could stay informed.
The Courier Mail online continues to impress when I looked further for more information and found that the ABC News Online coverage and the Nine MSN News coverage were both updated with new information only earlier today, while the Courier Mail's story is current to 7:27pm this evening. Closer inspection of each story shows some information from the ABC News Online report is already outdated compared to that of the Courier Mail ("Authorities say the incidents appear to be linked, but are still not confirming whether they were mother and daughter" - their relationship has since been confirmed).
This is a fantastic example of the importance of speed in online news reporting. Stories must be constantly updated as the world is constantly changing around us and more often readers are not satisfied with checking the news only once a day. The way the Courier Mail has reacted and adapted to this event is exactly what is required of a modern journalist.
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