Holding a story?

Assuming you're print, hold it until the morning of the supposed announcement. Call your source late the previous day and say you've heard rumblings that others have it and you really have no choice.

Since you had it first and will get it right, put it out there, tell him. But don't go hard; give it the details you might have been able to find out from other sources, but not everything. A preview, so to speak. Tell your source that more people will end up waiting anxiously for the actual announcement, if they know that morning that it's on the way.

That way you're covered, with everyone

 

+1

Assuming it's a positive story, nobody loses by you running it a day early -- except possibly you, if you get beat on it.

 

I had a friend tell me recently about someone who was getting fired, as well as who was offered the position but turned it down. It was one of those 'you can't leak this' type of things. Three weeks later it FINALLY came out. But I did tell him not to give me the full scoop if it was something that would jeopardize our friendship if I did a story on it anymore.

 

I'd run it.

JFK famously asked the NY Times to hold a story on the Bay of Pigs, which they had a day in advance of the actual invasion, in the name of national security. After the flop, Kennedy said he should have let the story run.

This is likely a much less dramatic sample, but I use that, somewhat, as a guideline. Like I said, knowing you're not going to be making a friend in the process, I'd run it.