Effort behind reporting Trump story

When the news broke that the president had tested positive for COVID-19 late Thursday night, U-T staffers from across the newsroom moved quickly to get the story on the website in minutes and in some print editions for Friday morning.

President Trump’s tweet that he and the first lady had the virus went out on the internet at 9:54.

Managing Editor Lora Cicalo first heard the news through the paper’s instant messaging system from director of design Michael Price before the tweet.

Around the same time, public safety reporter Teri Figueroa sent this note at 10:03 on the messaging system: “Did we see that Trump tested positive for COVID19?” She had received a news alert on her phone from one of the news outlets she follows and then looked on Twitter, where she saw the president’s tweet.

Cicalo was already searching the wires for a news story she could get online.

At 10:06, Beto Alvarez, the digital creative director, and business editor Diana Mccabe, jumped in after seeing the messaging.

By that time The Associated Press had transmitted a story. Alvarez began remaking the homepage of the U-T’S website; Mccabe put up a breaking news banner on the homepage; and at 10:07, Cicalo sent out a news alert to subscribers. That news alert actually beat AP’S alert.

Arts editor Michael Rocha, also seeing the messaging, posted the news to the U-T’S Facebook page at 10:11

Cicalo, Price and A-section designer Tyler Rau began changing the front page for print at 10:07.

The A-section pages had already been sent to the press in Los Angeles. The deadline was 9:20 p.m. The press was running by this time. They moved what had been the story in the upper right of A1 to A6 and tossed out a story on A8 to make room for the continuation of the Trump COVID story.

The new pages were sent to L.A. where the press was stopped to switch out the pages.

Some print readers received the Trump story. I did not get it at my home in Escondido, but Rau in Pacific Beach did. The e-edition (the digital version of the print newspaper) had the new pages.