The Nobel Prize: How the President was informed.

The first word of it came in the form of an e-mail message to the White House staff from the White House Situation Room, which monitors events worldwide around the clock, at 5:09 a.m. It carried the subject line “item of interest.”
Shortly before 6 a.m., the White House press secretary, Robert Gibbs, telephoned Mr. Obama, awakening him to share the news.