How the Bin Laden Announcement Leaked in the Media

The news that Osama Bin Laden was killed – a huge story – was leaked via Twitter. Members of the media were collecting themselves and Obama was still writing his speech when Keith Urbahn, a former Chief of Staff for Donald Rumsfeld, tweeted “So I’m told by a reputable person they have killed Osama Bin Laden. Hot damn.” This was at 10:25 pm, and according to The New York Times, the news began to spread quickly:

ABC, CBS and NBC interrupted programming across the country at almost the same minute, 10:45 p.m., with the news. “We’re hearing absolute jubilation throughout government,” the ABC News correspondent Martha Raddatz reported.

Brian Williams on NBC told viewers, ‘This story started to leak out in the public domain largely when some Congressional staffers started to make phone calls.’

 

 

Launch a social media campaign that will build your brand and deliver results in our online Social Media Marketing Boot Camp starting June 7. Speakers include Abigail Cusick (Bravo Digital), Gregory Galant (Sawhorse Media), Alex Leo (Thomson Reuters Digital), Jim Tobin (Ignite Social Media), and many more. Read the reviews.