The Exeter Express & Echo scooped national print, online and broadcast media yesterday when it exclusively revealed the buyers of the Exeter airport via a web video broadcast.

In a first for the paper, the Express & Echo uploaded a video featuring local government reporter Ben Norman on to its website with the news that a consortium made up of Balfour Beatty and London City Airport has been selected by Devon County Council as the preferred bidder to buy the airport.

Express & Echo editor Marc Astley told HoldtheFrontPage: "When we found out the story was going to leak on ITV news [on Tuesday evening], we decided to break it visually to beat the TV - as well as with a story on our website.

"We’re dead chuffed with it – it’s a first for us.

"We’ve recently ordered a proper video kit but we actually filmed this with a £190 camcorder which I picked up last week and edited it with some software that we got for £39.

"It’s the first time Ben has done anything like it, and it’s a bit Heath Robinson, but it looks OK."

Marc said the idea to break the news in a video format was due to the success the paper had with the mini-documentary series it produced on "pram-face" girls.

The series followed the lives of two local young single mothers after they had appeared in a Channel 4 documentary.