It doesn't matter if you are the newspaper or the newspaper's website. If news is breaking, you owe it to your readers to deliver.

"The news is CNN news," Chuck Westbrook explains. "That's the core objective."

Since news organizations went online, one of the most controversial issues has been the cannibalization of the core product. Westbrook, managing editor for CNN Interactive, says such thinking is out of place in multimedia organizations.

"Your main obligation is the people coming to your site for information," he says. "Why should I expect less because I'm on the computer? I don't care if it's in the newspaper first."

A newspaper website can level the playing field between newspapers and the more immediate media of television and radio. Prior to the web, newspapers could produce a product that would not be refreshed, for the most part, for 24 hours.

"You're live," says Westbrook. "You can update."

Build it and they may come

In general, branding is not a problem for users, Westbrook says. Most people know which news organization is supplying the information.

In CNN's case, whether people get their information from CNN the television broadcast or CNN the website, the reaction is the same: CNN has supplied them with information they need.

"If you want to own the story," he says, "you have to be able to put the story up first."

To that end, when a story breaks, you need to be able to convince the print producers that if you work together, the information will get out in a timely manner.

"You can't hold it anymore because no one else is holding it," says Paul Pohlman, Poynter director of Leadership Programs.

Getting up the skeleton: Sometimes, posting a breaking story means abandoning the narrative approach to storytelling, instead getting up the skeleton and then building a more substantial story as information becomes available.

Online, sometimes, people just want the facts, says Westbrook. In the Columbine High School shooting, for example, CNN first posted a few bullet points of sketchy, but accurate details. Next they posted a map and then the fact that eight people were believed dead. Along with the information, they added a disclaimer saying more details were coming.

"You don't want it perfect. You want it out, but you've got to get it right," Chuck says. "This isn't a newspaper at all and it doesn't have to be a newspaper."

The Set Up

Put the tools in place before the next big news event hits and have management sign off on your breaking news plan, Westbrook suggests. When CNN Interactive tried to figure out how to do better breaking news, they brought in a group that included online experts as well as a software developer, a technician, and streaming media expert. Remember that everyone in the organization is affected by breaking news, he says, and everyone is looking at this from a different angle.

Using a complex hierarchy of "specialists," CNN Interactive produces on average 200 stories a day.

"The key to this is that they are all specialists," he says, urging participants to go back to work thinking of themselves as specialists and treating others as specialists in what they do. "It's a mutual respect thing going on. No one is micro-managing and that, again, is crucial."

When Westbrook's group got started, people in the organization wondered what they did. But after a while, they started being seen as the in-house experts, he says. The web staff's handling of several stories online, including the Heaven's Gate suicide, and the Starr Report, helped cement their places as specialists.

The web staff called in computer technicians to help secure the Starr Report, which resulted in a 45-minute lead before everyone else and 34 million hits, Westbrook says.

One of the reasons the Starr report was pivotal, he says, is that it spawned other people to use the web to transmit information. The Pentagon now sends .mov files to CNN for web posting.

CNN is set up much like a television newsroom: They work in teams that include a senior editor, writer, producer and web editor, Westbrook says. The copy editor and multimedia people are on the outside and are pulled in as needed. The producer, through whom all material is funneled, is the gatekeeper.

Every piece of copy posted, including wire copy, is edited, Westbrook says. This practice saved some embarrassment for CNN when news outlets who auto post the wire reported that Bob Hope had died when he hadn't.

They monitor the video as it comes in and use live feeds if necessary, Westbrook says. Stories are updated constantly. "We're not sitting there waiting for the day wrap," he says. "We are doing things incrementally."

Suggestions & Observations

Develop partnerships with local broadcasters and stream video and audio.

Develop a plan for dealing with breaking news and designate a point person in the newsroom. Have management sign off on the plan.

If you do a bullet list, let users know that there will be more updates and when they can expect them.

If scooping the paper is a concern, offer an abbreviated story version online and refer to the full story in the paper.

See also:

• Multimedia Tools
• Toolbox on CNN Intranet