How long? A month? If you believe their story, they took time to fully vett the story, get all the details and then release it. They even brought an actual investigative journalist on when they realized the magnitude of the story. From what I have read, the series of events happened like this:
- Danny Moran was doing a fluff piece on Heimlich. He interviewed him several times.
- During the process of writing the article, they ran a standard background check.
- The background check brought up the charge from April that Heimlich had failed to register within a certain number of days after his 21st Birthday.
- At that point he said that he saw it was sex offender charge, so he requested the files from Washington to find out what it was all about.
- He got the files and the O brought in a second journalist to help him do the actual research.
I don't think they were sitting on it for a long time. Canzano said they knew since late May, and that it took some time to fully vett the story. It makes sense. They could open themselves up to a lawsuit if they weren't completely sure about what they were reporting.