Immediacy has always been a fundamental element of journalism as the very nature of the new is that it is new Broadcast and radio were traditionally the most immediate form of journalism as, should a majorstory break, they could interrupt their programming with a bulletin. However, they are still constrained by deadlines and cannot explore the story in too much depth (Gunter, 2003: 48). Print journalism allows story depth but often the story is not reported until the morning after. Online journalism provides perhaps the best arena for distributing news quickly (DeWolk, 2001: 51) as it presents the immediacy of broadcast and radio with the depth of print. However, this has presented a problematic question for news organizations that run both a traditional and online outlet whether or not to break a story on the online site before broadcasting or publishing it. "In the one hand, the news organization wants to take advantage of the incredible speed of the internet and be the one to break the story. On the other hand the organization does not want to beat its own primary news vehicle and tell competitor what it has. The again, the organization wants to use the web site as a promotion for its primary news product. But it does not want to make it unnecessary for people to purchase the newspaper or to watch or listen to a broadcast because they saw the story on the Web already." (DeWolk, 2003: 172-3)
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