The terrorist Osama bin Laden was confirmed dead on May 1st, 2011.
How this thing transpired was amazing.
I first got light on the issue about twenty minutes before President Obama’s “scheduled” 10:45 pm press conference. The announcement wasn’t made until 11:34 pm EST.
It was Keith Urbahn, former chief of staff for Donald Rumsfeld that had it first at 10:24 pm.
Then Jill Jackson, a CBS News Capitol News Producer, ran with it confidently citing a house intelligence committee aide at 10:33 pm.
Oh, the power of twitter. Everybody wants to be first, but dealing with something of this nature, it requires numerous sources. Nobody in their journalistic mind should run with this story with less than three very credible sources. One must cover their bases, as this is an unprecedented story and the end of an era.
I have no numbers but I would have to guess the majority of people first heard the news on social media. ESPN’s Michael Wilbon was skeptical about twitter for the last two years, but finally gave in over a week ago. His tweet about finding out the news is priceless.
“I guess this is the New World of Communication; after 2 hr flight, I land, turn on Blackberry and learn of Bin Laden news via Twitter. Wow!”
According to NBC Nightly News anchor Brian Williams, many journalists received a simple three-word e-mail that read, “Get to work.”
I was curious in watching how various news sources handled the situation. CNN was reluctant to report bin Laden was dead, probably confirming with multiple sources that it was indeed true. Fox News ran with Usama bin Laden dead instead of Osama.
A few minutes later, every credible outlet was reporting the news including the Associated Press and New York Times. By 11 pm eastern time, all the major networks were on air discussing the big news.
Later, CNN ran some unbelievable video of people at the White House gates chanting “U.S.A.” Then I flipped on the Mets-Phillies game, and fans united to do the same.
Often times I read various links and tweets suggesting something that isn’t actually true – that will happen when anybody can tweet at will.
May 1st, 2011 was a night to remember – almost ten years after the attacks.
Osama bin Laden is dead, and it was broken on twitter.
UPDATE:
Twitter gets even better. @ReallyVirtual unknowingly tweeted live about the helicopters’ raid at Osama bin Laden’s mansion in Abbottabad.
It happened at about 4:05 pm eastern time.