How to use messageboards to find a news story

[Keyword: online journalism]. Sarah-Kate Templeton, Medical Correspondent at the Sunday Times, demonstrates a great example of Computer Assisted Reporting in her article 'Doctors spit blood over plans to let nurses operate'. It documents doctors' reactions to NHS reforms giving nurses the right to carry out routine operations - but rather than looking up her list of GP contacts, Templeton has the much better idea of scouring the messageboards at Doctors.net.uk, producing quotes she probably wouldn't have got from a straight interview ("would you let an air hostess fly the plane with your family in it?" being one particularly juicy example), as well as a 'community response' feel from passages like "A doctor who urged the BMA to “put the boot in” won the support of more than 200 postings."