Jonsson knew who the shooter was, as well as the names of two victims, though Thornton had almost certainly shot more people. McNichols did not know how many victims there were in total. Nor could she say for certain whether they were dead. While she did know from the police that Thornton himself had been shot, his status, too, was unclear. Normally you would not get information like that very quickly from the police about who the shooter was, says Metro Editor Goodman. So we talked to her very carefully, and there was no doubt But the first question became, were we going to identify him? [1]

It was Goodmans decision, and he made it quickly. McNichols, though stunned, seemed an incredibly solid eyewitness. She even had a kind of confirmation from police that Thornton was shot. There had been no official press conference, but McNichols was a reporter, and she had heard police announce while she was crouched under her chair that the shooter had been hit. Further, Goodman and Jonsson felt it was important to make it clear that the shooter was not at large. Thorntons family might not yet have been notified of what had happened, but that seemed of secondary importance.

When it came to naming Thorntons victims, Goodman and Jonsson were less sure of themselves. McNichols had seen Yost and Ballman shot, and they trusted her account. But she had heard other names of victims from other witnesses while being ushered into a side room by police. Among those were Councilwoman Connie Karr, a close personal friend of several at the newspaper as well as the ex-wife of a Post-Dispatch sports writer. McNichols had also heard that Kirkwood Mayor Mike Swoboda and Councilman Michael H.T. Lynch had been hit.

Listen to Goodman on deciding what to publish. Length: 1 min 45 sec

But she had not personally seen Thornton shoot them. Whereas she had witnessed the shooting of Yost and Ballman, she had a different role as far as Thorntons other victims were concerned. In those cases, she was acting as a reporter interviewing eyewitnesses. How should Goodman and Jonsson weigh the different kinds of information? Should they trust others eyewitness accounts as much as they did McNichols?

The newspaper found itself in an unaccustomed position. Explains Public Safety Editor Gauen:

Ordinarily we're on the outside banging on the door trying to get in and looking for every morsel that we can get. And here we have a situation where in a sense we knew too much. We knew so much that we've got to decide on how to self-censor [Usually] the cop tells you you've got three people dead in here, that's in the public domain and everybody's pretty comfortable in using that and attributing it. In a case like this it's a question of how much do we trust what we've been told by our own people and how much do we want to [use]?

Other reporters had begun to return to the newsroom, either summoned by editors or as volunteers after seeing the STLtoday.com update. Goodman and Eisenhauer directed two reporters, Doug Moore and Tim ONeil, to research a profile of Thornton. The two began looking through the Post-Dispatch s electronic archives, and those of Kirkwoods neighborhood newspaper, the Webster-Kirkwood Times , for Thorntons name. The editors dispatched another reporter, David Hunn, to the hospital to await word on the victims. They directed several other reporters to begin researching the victims backgrounds to write brief profiles of them which, depending on what they learned later in the evening, might serve as obituaries.

Jonsson meanwhile worked on a fuller Web update. He called McNichols several times over the next half hour, double-checking facts and firming up details. He says:

I was just trying to talk to her [and] just go through it again and again, and try to get a little more detail each time. And then, sometimes, you ask other questions you can think of, and then you write it up, and then, you hit a point where, oh, I didnt really ask this and maybe I assumed that such and such was happening but lets check.

Only about 20 minutes had passed since the Post-Dispatch had first learned of the shooting, and now their police reporters had arrived on the scene. Local television news reporters were also present, having learned of the incident on their own police scanners or from STLtoday.com. But all members of the major mediaexcept McNicholswere held back blocks from Kirkwood City Hall by police tape. There was not much any of them could do but wait for the police to hold a press conference, and it was unclear when they would. McNichols at that point knew more about the shooting than any other member of the major St. Louis media organizations.

What, Metro Editor Goodman wondered, was the Post-Dispatch s responsibility as the only large news organization with access to the scene? Was the paper obliged to publish all of what it knew? Was it responsible to print the names of victims before they knew who, if anyone, was dead or should they wait for official confirmation or family notification? There was scarcely any time to consider. Goodman asked McNichols whether she felt she could come back to the office, and after she left the police station, she climbed into her car and began heading east down the highway, back to the Post-Dispatch newsroom.

Jonsson sent his first update to the Web staff at around 7:50 p.m., about half an hour after Gauen had posted the initial announcement of the shooting. Jonsson named the shooter as well as the victims McNichols had identified. He phrased his brief piece carefully. Among those hit, he wrote, in addition to the police officer, were Mayor Mike Swoboda, Council members Michael H.T. Lynch and Connie Karr and Public Works Director Kenneth Yost, McNichols said. Conditions were not known for any of them. [2]