The first text claimed active shooter, eight students shot at Lowndes High.

Then a quick second text, “Valdosta not Lowndes.”

I called a law enforcement source to verify something was happening. His quick response: “I’ll have to call you back … I’ll have to call you back.” And the call ended.

Knowing the law enforcement source, his response suggested something was up but it confirmed nothing.

I asked one reporter to reach out to his cop sources and go to the school.

I called another reporter and asked her to call her school sources; she said she thought the school system had an active shooter drill earlier in the week. Could my original source have overheard and misunderstood something about a drill?

Soon, we discovered social media posts claiming a shooter at the school, people shot.

Parents posted they were going to the school to get their children. The reporter at the scene said he was parked with hundreds of cars along Inner Perimeter Road outside of the school. A heavy rain began to fall.

Meanwhile, calls and texts asked if the newspaper knew about a shooter at the school. Responding we were working the story and had a reporter at the scene, the callers and texters asked what we knew?

The immediate response: We know first responders are at the scene. We know a lot of people drove to the school. We have heard what you have heard but officially we know nothing.

At first, that was it.

Some shared other things they had heard. Usually, they had not witnessed what they shared. They said things like I have a friend who works at the hospital, or I have a friend who talked to her daughter who’s a student at the school. Claims ranged from the hospital is admitting injured students to varying numbers of people shot.

None of these claims were true.

Some people asked why the newspaper had not posted anything about an active shooter? Why had we not reported the number of people shot? Why were we not reporting what they were telling us?

Because we had no confirmation of any shooter on scene.

We had no official confirmation of injuries.

We had dozens of social media posts, texts and calls of people claiming this had happened and that had happened. But nothing confirmed.

When the city school system issued a statement that authorities were working reports of an active shooter at VHS, we reported it.

A few minutes later, when a second school system statement reported no active shooter and no injuries, we reported that, too.

Despite the rumors, despite frantic phone calls, despite the numerous Facebook and Twitter posts: No gunman. No injuries. No deaths.

Thank you, God.

But this is why we verify.

It doesn’t mean the newspaper is always right. We’re a human enterprise. Like most businesses, we make mistakes. We do our best to correct them. But we also do our best to confirm information before publishing online and in print.

It’s better to be last and right, especially in a breaking news situation such as the VHS incident Wednesday, than to be first and wrong.

Waiting for that confirmation, working for it, is not easy.

When inundated with so many calls and posts, and comments from people we know who know someone who said this happened, etc., it’s tempting to post breaking news about those reports.

But, as it happened this week, those reports proved unfounded.

Had we reported comments, etc., in this case, we would have been wrong. Because these reports were unconfirmed and they were wrong.

They were rumor, fear and chaos.

This is why we verify. This is why we confirm.

Again, it is not easy to do, especially in the face of a potential crisis, that has hundreds of scared people scrambling to check on their kids, that has coworkers sharing what they’ve heard from someone whom they know who claims they know what’s really happening.

It’s tempting.

But we do our best not to give into that temptation.

We strive to remain calm but with urgency, to be a rational voice in a sea of uncertainty, to seek understanding, to seek official sources for confirmation.

Thank God all of those early rumors were not true.

But this is why we verify.

Dean Poling is an editor with The Valdosta Daily Times and editor of The Tifton Gazette.