May 2, 2011 at 5:57 AM

Tonight was supposed to be a quiet night for The Daily Collegian.

Our final daily newspaper of the spring semester hit stands Friday. We had wished our senior class farewell earlier Sunday at our annual senior picnic.

And then Twitter exploded, as I'm sure it did for many of you did. Reports were coming in from far and wide: Osama bin Laden was dead.

My reporters and I didn't even get the chance to watch President Obama's address. Managing Editor Casey McDermott and reporter Anna Orso headed to the HUB-Robeson Center. I literally ran to Beaver Canyon, dialing every reporter and photographer that was still in State College. You can't imagine my surprise when I got to Beaver Canyon -- sidewalks filled with people -- only to see reporter Zach Geiger on his second-floor Cedarbrook balcony. He was in the streets with me, notebook and pen in hand, within minutes. Within fifteen minutes, we were joined by a small band of reporters and photographers.

Geiger's apartment would become our newsroom for the night. We updated our website from two laptops and various smart phones. I linked @dailycollegian to my Droid and maneuvered through the masses trying to bring our followers on Twitter right into the action. Meanwhile, our reporters and photographers were doing the same. From our second-floor station, I watched photographer Pete Tesoriero photograph a small fire revelers had set in the street and reporter Audrey Snyder taking film on her flip cam. Reporters came in and out of the apartment all night to update the website with photos, print stories and videos.

At 1:30 a.m. I got a call from The Daily Collegian's office. Good Morning America had called, hoping to use our footage on this morning's 7 to 9 a.m. broadcast. Eventually, we all headed back to our basement office to assemble the homepage you can view now.

So why am I telling you this?

More than anything, I think tonight really exemplified how committed The Daily Collegian is to being a news source, not just a newspaper. We had an entire staff of reporters and photographers out in the streets tonight knowing that we didn't have a 16-page newspaper to fill tomorrow. Everything would run online.

And no one could have asked for more.

All that we wanted tonight, was to provide you with the best and most comprehensive coverage of the celebration in Beaver Canyon. I couldn't be more pleased with our coverage, and I genuinely hope you feel the same.

-Lexi Belculfine.