On Monday, the media was invited to attend a "major" funding announcement at Shellharbour Airport by Kiama MP Gareth Ward, who unveiled a grant of almost $16 million dollars.
Now, a new boost of $16 million - which could lead to major upgrades and a new budget airline in the Illawarra - would have been a pretty big deal.
In fact - it would have been the largest grant of its type under Regional NSW funding for the Illawarra in this year's budget.
So why on earth were we hearing of it from a cross-bench MP a week after the budget was released? Why had the Illawarra Labor MP's who trumpeted their investments in the region not spoken about this before? Why was there no mention of it in budget papers?
Read our story on the announcement here: Ward announces funding for Shellharbour Airport that wasn't there
And why was the amount exactly the same as funding for the airport announced - by Gareth Ward, no less - in 2019?
There were a lot of things that didn't add up we approached this story, and - despite a lot of self-congratulations from Mr Ward and accolades from thrilled Shellharbour council leaders who apparently thought there was a massive windfall coming their way - a lot of questions remained as journalists left the airport.
Later that afternoon, the story ran on local news bulletins and in some newspapers quoting Mr Ward saying that 737s would be able to land at Shellharbour and that his announcement was "so significant for this region".
Mr Ward also popped the announcement on his own website, and social media, and many Illawarra residents started to get excited about the prospect of cheaper flights.
But we held off publishing - even though we knew that would mean others would get the jump on this apparently big news.
After three hours of phone calls and emails going backwards and forwards from Mr Ward, Labor politicians, and government officers, journalist Connor Pearce confirmed what we expected.
This was not new money, and there was no new announcement or further upgrades for the airport as the money had already been allocated, and pretty much spent.
It had been included as a line item in the Kiama Electorate summary given by the treasury to Mr Ward, but - as confirmed by our journalist - had been on there for the past four years.
In the end, at nearly 9pm, our readers were informed.
Not of a big bucket of money and a major boost to aviation, but of a non-announcement from an MP who probably should have known better.
But the damage was done, and thanks to the other media reports and Mr Ward's communications, many of our readers were sharing in the excitement about a project that - at present - does not exist.
Whether it should is another question - but people should not be misled about what's happening in their region.
Having a journalist ask questions and find out the truth should not be remarkable. All we did was our job.
But, in an age when politicians can say whatever they like on social media, and when there's more time and resource pressures than ever for news outlets to feed the hungry beast of the news cycle, it does show the value of well-resourced, quality, local news.
Which is what you'll get here.
