It would be nice to hear a little bit more about how the FOMC results get into the electronic news feed. If anything, it seems more fair to release the news simultaneously in NY and Chicago so that traders in NY couldn't pick-off market makers in Chicago and vice versa.
Good question. I can't find any specific information about how the FOMC statement gets parsed into cyberspace, but as recently as 2011, a malfunctioning printer significantly delayed the FOMC statement release [1] since the press in the Treasury lockup room couldn't get access to physical copies to write articles about it in time for the a scheduled 2:15 ET press release.
A FAQ on the Richmond Fed's website [2] says that FOMC statements are released on the federalreserve.gov website [3] at 2:15 ET on the final day of each FOMC meeting. Unless there is an alternative statement provided elsewhere by the Fed, I assume that the FOMC statement is parsed by machines checking for differences in language use with the previous Fed statement -- doing a diff on successive FOMC statements is a common practice when reporting on a statement release [4].
