A massive week of news shows power of Dispatch, USA TODAY Network

Two news alerts from a service our journalists use arrived on my phone simultaneously Saturday evening as my wife and I watched television.

They mentioned posts on X about shots possibly being fired at former President Donald Trump. A quick channel change to cable news confirmed something indeed had happened. My phone began to beep incessantly as I headed to my home office.

Within a few minutes our weekend producer Bryce Houston had published our USA TODAY Network's breaking news story on a bloodied Trump being rushed away by Secret Service agents and sent an alert on our mobile app and to email subscribers.

That was the start of what became an exhausting week for our team, including two staffers sent to Pennsylvania to join a network team of reporters and photographers covering the assassination attempt. Others in Columbus sought reaction from local leaders, pastors and political scientists.

We already knew it would be a busy week with Ohio Sen. JD Vance on the short list of contenders to become Trump's pick for vice president at the Republican National Convention. Statehouse Bureau reporter Haley BeMiller was in Milwaukee for the possibility and additional coverage.

When Trump announced Vance on Monday afternoon, we immediately published a wave of prepared content on Vance's political history, connections to Columbus and collections of his past opinion columns we've published. Almost immediately, tens of thousands of people searching Google for information on Vance flocked to Dispatch.com.

Then on Tuesday, BeMiller notified our team that Columbus police working in Milwaukee to assist with convention security had fatally shot a man, a tip we were able to quickly verify. That news spurred another major breaking news response by our journalists again working with our network colleagues in Milwaukee and at USA TODAY.

For all three of these stories the information we were able to deliver to readers was greatly strengthened by our entire network of more than 200 local news sites working together, especially Tuesday with Milwaukee Journal Sentinel journalists feeding us information, images and video from the scene. We were able to share the first confirmation that Columbus officers were involved and additional information throughout the day, including body camera video released by the city that night.

In Pennsylvania, photographer Doral Chenoweth arrived late Saturday night and was at the site early Sunday morning to get drone images and video of the location where Trump and three others were wounded. One of his images, shared via our wire service, was used by the New York Times on its Monday front page.

He was joined Sunday morning by Dispatch reporter Sheridan Hendrix and journalists from other Ohio and Pennsylvania sites in our network. They spent three days chasing down information about the shooter and victims, while speaking to residents about their reactions.

In these situations, our rapidly assembled national teams largely communicate by instant messages in Microsoft Teams. Reporters and editors coordinate logistics and share information.

It can be a chaotic and confusing conversation as journalists working nationwide communicate questions that need answered and report back confirmed information. But as I watched messages fly this past week, I was struck by the great care used in verifying information before it was shared publicly. This is nothing new, but it's a side of our work that often gets overlooked in this age of social media rumors and speculation.

I'm grateful to all of our USA TODAY Network journalists who jumped into these stories to ensure we had complete and accurate coverage.

Michael Shearer is the executive editor of The Columbus Dispatch and Dispatch.com. He can be reached at mshearer@dispatch.com or 614-245-0358.

This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: A big week of news shows power of Columbus Dispatch, USA TODAY Network