Gina Smith, ace reporter

Pity Gina Smith, ace reporter at the State newspaper in Columbia, South Carolina. She came so close to the scoop of the year - possibly the decade, given South Carolina's sleepy southern reputation.

Smith reports in glorious detail on theState.com today how she drove to Atlanta's international airport in neighbouring Georgia bright and early yesterday following a tip-off that Governor Sanford, supposedly on a hiking trip in the Appalachians, would be stepping off the 6.15am arrival from Buenos Aires.

It followed the receipt of some inverifiable emails about a possible affair between Sanford and a women called Maria in Argentina.

Gina was on tenterhooks as she waited in the arrivals hall. Why were there no other media? Did she have the story to herself, she wondered. And then she saw him.

"My jaw dropped when Sanford appeared," she writes. "My camera flashed, almost as a reflex.

"'Governor,' I called. 'Hey. It's Gina with the State paper. Everybody's been worried about where you've been... Have you been on the Appalachian Trail?'

'Well, that's where I had planned to go when I decided to take a break...' Sanford said, his voice trailing off. He suggested we grab a seat and have a talk."

Smith recounts how the Governor appeared nervous, gazing off, searching for words. He launched into a spiel about the Appalachians and how he loved his trips there, because they allowed him to be alone and go unnoticed.

Buenos Aires was a lot like that too, he suddenly said. Smith pounced. Had he been alone in Buenos Aires, she asked.

"Yes," he replied.

"That's when he cut me off," writes Smith, "saying he could see where the interview was going and he did not want to discuss the situation further. With that, the Governor said goodbye and left the airport with an aide."

Then comes the paragraph it must have pained Smith to write:

"Later that day, Sanford admitted to a room full of journalists that he had had an extramarital affair with a woman from Argentina. I always will wonder if the story would have broken if I had failed to catch him in the airport."

If Gina Smith didn't exactly get her scoop, she did at least score a blow on behalf of local reporters. With newspaper closures now a huge issue in the States, the fact that Sanford might never have come clean but for Smith's questions at the airport is already being taken up by the 'local papers must not die' lobby. ·