Web Site Jumps Gun on Verdict

The ABC News.com page on the World Wide Web ran a headline convicting Timothy J. McVeigh on all counts an hour before the verdicts were read in the Oklahoma City bombing case.

“We noticed it ourselves before anyone had to tell us about it and corrected it immediately,” spokeswoman Eileen Murphy said from New York.

The network had prepared material for verdicts of guilt and innocence. A junior staffer was assigned to put all the copy on the site’s “staging server,” where it could be edited before it went out to the world.

It turns out, however, that whatever is put on the staging server goes immediately into the headline ticker--a box on the site that runs continuous headlines.