NewsFirst launched in June 2006 and is a continuously updated section for breaking local news. Instead of posting a handful of stories during one day’s news cycle, editors now regularly post more than 20 breaking stories.

That’s because we’ve empowered newspaper editors with the ability to post news directly to HeraldTribune.com. The result is better online journalism and about 150,000 new page views per month. The number of return visitors to the site per day is about 70 percent more than before NewsFirst was created.

When Herald-Tribune investigative reporters became the first in the nation to identify the priest who U.S. Rep. Mark Foley said molested him, the news broke online in NewsFirst.

Credit for the content goes to the entire newsroom. But Leigh Caldwell, the one person we depend on for wrangling daily news coverage at HeraldTribune.com, deserves special recognition for this project. We launched NewsFirst during her first week on the job.

The inspiration for this idea came from JSOnline.com's Daywatch blog. When smart people see a good idea, they know to copy it fast. We do breaking news at least a little differently, of course. But many thanks to JS for paving the way.