Trial Notebook

Jumping the gun

The ABC News.com Web page ran a headline convicting Timothy McVeigh on all counts an hour before the verdicts were read Monday 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.

Like all news organizations, 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 onto the actual server and out to the world via the Web site.

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.

ABC corrected the problem within 30 minutes.

Clinton says day ‘overdue’ WASHINGTON

Monday was “a very important and long overdue day” for victims’ families and others touched by the Oklahoma City bombing, President Clinton said after the guilty verdicts were announced.

Rather than comment directly on the verdicts against Timothy McVeigh, Clinton focused on the survivors and the families of those killed.

The courage they displayed in the face of profound personal loss “has been an inspiration to all Americans,” he said.

“No single verdict can bring an end to your anguish. Our prayers are with you,” Clinton said in a written statement issued at the White House shortly after the verdicts were announced.

The president recalled what he said to the families shortly after the bombing two years ago, and said the sentiments he expressed then are unchanged today.

“I told them that though they had lost much, they had not lost everything. They had not lost America,” Clinton said. “I pledged then and I pledge now that we will stand with them for as many tomorrows as it takes.”

Clinton praised those who worked on the McVeigh case, from federal prosecutors to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, the FBI and Attorney General Janet Reno.

Cell phones to the rescue NEW YORK

With no TV broadcasting live from the courtroom, cell phones proved the key in getting word of Timothy McVeigh’s conviction to the rest of the world Monday.

Given about 45 minutes notice that a verdict had been reached in the Oklahoma City bombing, ABC, CBS, NBC, MSNBC, CNN and the Fox News Channel provided live coverage when it was announced shortly after 12:30 p.m. PDT.

Cameras weren’t allowed in the Denver courtroom, so most of the networks stationed people in a listening room down the hall to relay the verdict, virtually simultaneously.

“You just pray that the cell phone works,” NBC spokeswoman Barbara Levin said.

ABC, CBS and NBC all broke into their afternoon schedules to note a verdict had been reached, then returned later for the verdict itself.

Big day times two OKLAHOMA CITY

Most people whose loved ones died in the Oklahoma City bombing were awaiting only one verdict on Monday.

Edye Smith Stowe had two on her mind.

Stowe, whose two sons died in the rubble that had been a federal day-care center, learned while undergoing an ultrasound test on Monday afternoon that she is carrying a child.

“This couldn’t be a better day,” said Stowe, 25, who underwent the test within an hour of hearing that Timothy McVeigh had been convicted of the bombing that killed Chase, 3, and Colton, 2.

Implanted with three eggs at a Los Angeles fertility clinic in the spring, Stowe had hoped for triplets. She was nonetheless thrilled to see the first images of a single baby girl or boy, expected in late December or early January.