Managing Editor Pam Maples had just walked into her house when her cousin called to tell her about the shooting and that Connie Karr, a friend of the Maples family, had been shot. “I turned around and got my keys and said to my husband, ‘I’m going to work,’” Maples recalls. She called her cousin back from the car and asked how she knew about Karr and whether she could email Maples the names and phone numbers of people who knew Karr well. When Maples returned to the newsroom, she immediately found Metro Editor Goodman and asked where she could be of use.

The Web story was already well underway, so Maples and Goodman discussed what they should do with McNichols once she got there. Goodman thought she might be able to write a first-person account of the shooting. Or perhaps, he suggested, she should do a video for STLtoday.com describing her ordeal. That would give readers an eyewitness account, with the added advantage that the Post-Dispatch could distribute the video to national media so that McNichols would not have to describe her ordeal again. Maples liked the idea but wanted to make sure McNichols was comfortable with it.

They needed a text account for the newspaper, however. Goodman and Maples decided against asking McNichols to write it herself, instead directing an experienced reporter and fast writer, Steve Giegerich, to interview her and write a description of the events from her perspective.

McNichols arrives. At 8:50 p.m., Jonsson filed a second update, adding details from other reporters about Thornton’s history with Kirkwood, but still only allowing that Thornton had shot “several people.” He did not give a total number of those shot or their conditions, but again listed the names of the shooting victims McNichols had confirmed. In his view and Goodman’s, there was not yet adequate confirmation—either from police or the families of Thornton’s victims—to begin reporting deaths.

Meanwhile television news reporters—still cordoned off blocks from the scene—had resorted to filming STLtoday.com. This only intensified the pressure on Post-Dispatch reporters and editors to get the news fast, but above all to get it right. The rest of St. Louis’ media was relying on the paper for information, and if the Post-Dispatch made a mistake, other news organizations would repeat it. Says Gauen: “We had a huge amplifier attached to our product.”

Then at 9:13, minutes after Jonsson had posted his second update but before the police had made any official announcement, local Fox affiliate KTVI reported that there were six dead from the attack, including Kirkwood’s mayor. [1] Goodman and Jonsson decided not to repeat the claim. They were confident that Fox’s sources knew no more about the attack than did their own. Finally, shortly before 9:30, the police convened a press conference. Fox had gotten it just about right—there were six dead. But the police did not release any names, saying only that the six were two police officers, three Kirkwood officials, and the shooter. There was no explicit mention of the mayor.

Matching McNichols’ information with the police announcement, Jonsson and Post-Dispatch editors could infer who was dead. Two police officers—that meant it was likely that the officer McNichols had seen shot, Tom Ballman, was dead. The three Kirkwood officials were probably the three McNichols had named: Connie Karr, Mike H.T. Lynch, and Public Works Director Kenneth Yost. In that case, it seemed that the mayor had survived.

But was this inference adequate confirmation—even if it was drawn from an eyewitness account and an official announcement? Goodman and Jonsson remained cautious. If anything, the police press conference had complicated matters rather than clarifying them. The Post-Dispatch could simply report McNichols’ claims side by side with the police announcement. But then readers might infer who was dead. Goodman felt uncomfortable publishing material that could push them toward a conclusion which might prove wrong.

McNichols arrived in the newsroom at around the same time. Managing Editor Maples escorted her into her office and shut the door. Maples recalls: “I said, first of all… how are you doing? What do you need? We are here for you… We want to be sure you’re OK.” Then she asked McNichols for an interview, and secured the stringer’s permission to videotape the interview. Maples vacated her office to allow reporter Steve Giegerich and a videographer a quiet space in which to interview McNichols.