Textbook 21st Century Journalism

Now this is how a 21st century newspaper can and should do it. No sooner had Washington Redskins coach Steve Spurrier resigned Tuesday than the Washington Post was all over the developments online with a story by staff writer Mark Maske at 2:34 p.m. ET and a live online chat with associate sports editor George Solomon at 3 p.m. (Solomon stayed online for about 30 minutes), to be followed at 4:30 p.m. by another online chat, this one with columnist Michael Wilbon.

The Associated Press broke the story at 1:52 p.m. ET and had a follow-up story at 2:37 clarifying details of the resignation from its earlier story. The Post may have had an earlier story (Maske further updated his 2:34 p.m. story at 3:22) than AP, but by overwriting the same URL, it wasn’t possible to follow the progression of the updates (something more interesting to journalists than readers). ESPN News was all over the story on cable, but it did not appear that local television news was cutting into scheduled programming like “Dr. Phil” (the Redskins are BIG news in Metro D.C.). Score this one for the Post.