13. A method of automatically sorting disaster and/or accident related news stories by their temporal characteristics using a computing system comprising: a) identifying a first news vent involving a disaster and/or accident related event; wherein said first news event is associated by the computing system with a plurality of corresponding event status states defined for a progress template for such first news event; wherein said event status states are associated by the computing system with content for the first news event which is distinctive to different temporal periods within said progress template; b) analyzing a first electronic document describing said first event with the computing system to identify first content snippets determinative of a first status state of said first news event relative to said event status states defined for said progress template; c) analyzing a second electronic document with second content snippets describing a second status state for said first news event with the computing system; and d) determining which of said first and second electronic documents contains content describing a more current status state of said first event by comparing said first status state to said second status state and generating an output with the computing system indicating which of said electronic documents describes the more current status state; wherein changes in corresponding content snippets relating to one of least property damage, loss of lives, injuries survivors and/or an absolute time of such first event are tracked between documents and used by the computing system to derive a relative temporal relationship between said first electronic document and second electronic document.
16. The method of claim 13 wherein said steps are implemented as one or more computer software routines stored in a tangible media and adapted to cause one or more computing systems to perform the operations recited therein.