ABSTRACT
The first and most important lesson in any news story, no matter what the time pressure
or difficulty in obtaining the facts, is to get it right. Be accurate. Wheeler said that the newspaper
had never encountered a story of this size and dimension. It produced four major stories
that night, including one from its environmental reporter, Dewar, reporting that the city’s
emergency plan was hopelessly outdated and did not even address the issue of the train
tunnel. The newspaper continued its reporting in the several days firefighters took to control
the blaze. The environmental aspects also included a story about how the train was one of
countless shipments of hazardous materials that went through the city by rail (Dunne, 2002d).
