-
Why Doesn’t Obama Ban Iranian Press TV? by Kenneth R. Timmerman
The Case of CH2M HILL: $2 Billion in Crony Stimulation by Rusty Weiss
The Truth about George Soros by AIM Staff
Lifting the Veil on WikiLeaks by AIM Staff
The Truth about Al-Jazeera English by Cliff Kincaid
Reaganomics and Obamanomics in the Media and in Reality by Malcolm A. Kline, Don Irvine and Spencer Irvine
How State Budget Battles Could Mean More Criminals Back on the Streets by Michael Tremoglie
Radical Muslims, Environmentalists and the Green Jihad by Mark Musser
Russian-Backed Propaganda Networks Claim Obama is a CIA Agent by Cliff Kincaid
Media Conceal True Nature of Flash Mob Racial Violence by John T. Bennett
NBC’s Mitchell Should Resign Over Telling Gaddafi’s Lies (Part 1, Part 2, Part 3) by Cliff Kincaid
CASA de Maryland: The Illegals’ ACORN by James Simpson
Special Report
The Newswire
Take AIM Podcast
Twitter Scoops the Networks on Osama Bin Laden News
Last night’s news of the death of Osama Bin Laden may have been the clearest example of the 24/7 news cycle we now live in and how ill prepared networks are to compete in this new environment.
As the networks were engrossed in their usual Sunday night programming, a tweet by Keith Urbahn, the one-time chief of staff to former defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld, was credited by The New York Times for alerting the world to Bin Laden’s death.
“So I’m told by a reputable person they have killed Osama Bin Laden. Hot damn.”
Urbahn’s tweet was sent out at 10:25 p.m. and was soon confirmed by anonymous sources at the Pentagon and the White House. The networks then broke the news at 10:45 p.m. and the President added his confirmation of Bin Laden’s death at 11:35 p.m.
The twenty minute differential between the initial tweet and the networks’ announcement is, in Internet time, an eternity. That one tweet rocketed around the world and was available to the estimated 200 million registered users instantaneously while non-techies had to wait until the old media caught up with the rest of the world.
Twitter triumphed much in the same way that CNN did over twenty years ago when they reported on the start of the Gulf War and had viewers glued to their television sets. That was the old model.
In a very short time Twitter has gone from a novelty microblogging site to an essential part of the news stream, and this scoop should help cement its place in our new media landscape.
Share This
About the author
Don Irvine is Chairman of Accuracy in Media. He is active on Facebook and Twitter. You can follow him @donirvine to read his latest thoughts.
Related Posts
2 Comments for Twitter Scoops the Networks on Osama Bin Laden News
News you cant trust it ive even stopped with READERS DIGEST their all fruadulent and liars
[...] The glaring problem was the platform. [...]