More than a year of planning came to fruition last week as a regional daily covered the ‘biggest ever event’ on its patch.

The South Wales Argus had the world’s media on its doorstep as its home city of Newport hosted the Nato summit last Thursday and Friday.

More than 60 world leaders including President Obama arrived in the city along with more than 1,500 journalists from across the world,

As well as covering the entire summit live on its website with words, videos and stills, the paper also produced two special front pages and a 12-page picture special.

Editor Kevin Ward said: “This is the biggest event Newport has ever staged, and we have pulled out all the stops to cover it.

“Our reporters and photographers have done a magnificent job in producing comprehensive online and print coverage in the face of huge competition from the world’s media.

“We have been running a live blog, including live video, on our website all week. Our coverage of Obama’s visit to a local primary school was viewed by almost 60,000 people on our website and by more than 90,000 people on Facebook.

“The newsroom has been effectively working a 24-hour shift system for the week with reporters and photographers covering all of the major summit events and visits. I’m incredibly proud of the work my team has produced this week.”

Kevin added that the paper’s main inteerst had been impact of the summit on the local area, rather than the political machinations of the summit itself.

This included the drafting in of almost 10,000 police for the duration of the summit, with hundreds of anti-Nato protesters also in the city.

Said Kevin:  “It has been a slightly surreal experience to see police officers on every street corner, a peace camp in one of our local parks, protest marches, huge security convoys on the roads ferrying world leaders to the summit and, of course, the most powerful man in the world turning up at one of our local primary schools.”

However there were compensations, with Argus journalists joining those from 60 countries invited to sample the best of Welsh food and drink at a special event for the world’s media at Tredegar House, Newport.