Here at KVAL News, we pride ourselves on being first with breaking news that happens in our community. But maybe you've wondered why? Why do we try so hard to get on the air immediately, even if we don't know all of the information?

Yesterday's homicide in Eugene is a good example of why we work so hard to get you important information about safety- quickly. A man was killed near the downtown area, and the suspect was still on the loose.

Roads were also closed in the area and many people were frightened. Even if we didn't have all of the details, we wanted to make sure our on-air viewers and online readers knew what was going on, so they could make choices about their own safety. By getting the information out quickly, it would be easier for someone to spot the suspect while he was still in the area.

I'll give you an approximate timeline of events in our newsroom:

5:20: I received a Tipline call at 685-KVAL from a business owner. She said dozens of "cops and ambulances" had pulled up near the Washington-Jefferson bridge.

5:21: Staci, the producer of the 6 o'clock show, called the Eugene Police Department. They confirmed officers had been sent out on a stabbing call and that roads in the area were closed.

5:25: Reporter Elissa Harrington and photographer Kelly Lyon headed to the area, to find out more about what was going on.

5:26: Web producer Mark Furman posted all of the information we knew so far to KVAL.com and began posting updates to the KVAL News Twitter page (The Web story was updated 7 times by 6:30).

5:28: After confirming more details, Jennifer Winters and David Walker read a story on-air, warning people about the possible stabbing and the closed roads.

5:30-5:40: Max, our 5 o'clock producer, got a crawl on-air warning people about the road closures. (A crawl is the words running along the bottom of the screen during other programming.) I called our live truck operator, Loren, and asked him to move the truck from Alton Baker Park to the Washington-Jefferson bridge. Reporter Addison Taylor came back to the newsroom to do his story on geese that was the original live shot. Producer Staci changed her rundown to add the breaking news. Elissa and Kelly had a tough time reaching the scene because a train was blocking them.

5:45: Elissa and Kelly reached the scene and began asking EPD for more details. Elissa saw a body on the ground and called the newsroom to let us know it was likely the victim had died. Live truck operator Loren also reached the scene and began setting up a live shot. Elissa sent us pictures from the scene via her cell phone.

5:50: Loren sent us video from the scene by using the live truck. Elissa confirmed there had been a homicide and that police were looking for a suspect.

5:51-5:59: We finished scripts, video, and graphics for the breaking news. We also updated the crawl.

5:59-6:00: We went live to Elissa Harrington four times at the scene to get live updates.

Watch all four live shots condensed into one video file here: