Two daily newspapers used their combined web portal to stay ahead of the broadcasters in covering yesterday’s report on the South Wales e-coli outbreak.

Wales Online, which provides a web presence for the Western Mail and the South Wales Echo as well as stablemate Wales on Sunday, used live blogging to provide instant coverage of Professor Sir Hugh Pennington’s report.

Three reporters were on hand at Cardiff’s Copthorne Hotel to provide instantaneous online coverage as Professor Pennington outlined his damning report into the 2005 outbreak which killed one youngster.

Gareth Rogers, Madeleine Brindley and Abby Alford live-blogged the entire event, from Prof Pennington’s report to the emotional reaction of Sharon Mills, whose five-year-old son Mason died.

In addition each of the 20 recommendations made in the report were instantly posted to Twitter along with other bullet points from the conference.

The move follows the massive success of WalesOnline’s hugely popular live blogs of Wales’ football teams in action.

Head of multimedia Peter Morrell said: “Our team is really making the most of the opportunities the web offers to ensure our readers know what’s going on first.

“Every aspect of this very important report was on both our site and Twitter literally within seconds.”