We reported it on Twitter exactly 4 minutes AFTER it actually happened, without any crew at the scene or nearby. (It took local media some 20 minutes more to my information..)
Michael van Poppel writing about his popular twitter-newsservice @BreakingNewsOn. Technically, he and his growing team can and do beat many traditional news outlets in speed. (Mainly thanks to 24/7 monitoring of all 750 local US news affiliates.) The question remains: are those 16 minutes (20 minus 4) that important? Important enough to make money out of it? No question such a service costs money to run and maintain. No question is it is valuable to some. But I think you never can monetize it enough to cover the cost, or even make a profit. And if you can, the big guns will jump in and crush the little guys. Just my 2 cts and I hope I’m wrong.