When news breaks

So Heath Ledger died this afternoon...

Crazy.

My cohort Brian was the first one to get the news alert about 3:30 ... to which all of us responded with reactions of What!? ... No way! ... You're kidding!

The first thing I did to try to get some confirmation was Google his name and then look for Wikipedia ...

Sure enough, there it was on Wiki ...

Heathcliff Andrew Ledger[1] (April 4, 1979 – January 22, 2008) was an Academy Award-nominated Australian actor. ... Ledger died in New York City on January 22, 2008.[2]

He hadn't been dead for a half hour and Wikipedia already had it, complete with a tag to say the article was about a person who died recently ...

When the proposal came to post the breaking news on our Web site, someone asked if we even had enough to report. I said, "Who cares. Just link to Wikipedia. 'Stay tuned to Wikipedia where our breaking news reporters are on the scene for this developing story!' "

Ah, the Internet.