Technology

Twitter Clocked 5,106 Tweets-per-Second at Height of OBL Death News

NEW YORK (AP) — A soldier in Afghanistan learned about the death of Osama bin Laden on Facebook. A TV producer in South Carolina got a tip from comedian Kathy Griffin on Twitter. A blues musician in Denver received an email alert from The New York Times. And a Kansas woman found out as she absently scrolled through the Internet on her smartphone while walking her dog.

In an illustration of how the information world has changed, many people learned through media formats or devices that weren’t available a decade ago that the mastermind of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks had been killed.

“It just kind of spread like wildfire online,” said Stephen Vujevica, a student at Immaculata University in Pennsylvania. “It’s amazing to see how social media played a part in it.”

Vujevica was at his girlfriend’s house and both were on their laptops, when she said that many of her friends had updated their Facebook status to note bin Laden’s death in Pakistan. He went to Google News to find out that President Barack Obama had scheduled an address to the nation. He searched other sites to get news and credited Twitter with giving him the most immediate information.

Jaime Aguilar, a Denver musician, was at a friend’s house watching HBO when he saw the news alert on his smartphone.

A soldier who identified himself only as Carlos from Queens called New York sports radio station WFAN Monday to note that he and his buddies in Afghanistan learned the news not from commanding officers, but from Facebook. Angie Scharnhorst of Overland Park, Kan., had an early morning plane flight and if she wasn’t carrying her smartphone while walking her dog Ruby at 2 a.m. CT, said she probably wouldn’t have heard the news until later in the day Monday.

Ashlee Edwards, a content producer for the CBS affiliate WBTW-TV in Myrtle Beach, S.C., was watching “The Tudors” with a friend when she saw Griffin’s tweet urging her to “turn on CNN now” because the president was about to make an announcement.

It was before 10 p.m. ET Sunday that many Washington-based reporters were told to get to work because the president would speak. They were not told why.

At 10:25, Keith Urbahn, the chief of staff for former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld tweeted: “So I’m told by a reputable person that they have killed Osama bin Laden. Hot damn.”

The word spread quickly, even as Urbahn subsequently tweeted that he “didn‘t know if it’s true, but let’s pray it is.”

Mainstream news organizations began reporting that bin Laden was dead about 15 or 20 minutes later. Some, such as CNN and NBC, were tentative at first. Others, including ABC, were more definitive. Fox News Channel was joyful.

“This is the greatest night of my career,” said Fox’s Geraldo Rivera. “The bum is dead, the savage who hurt us so grievously. I am so blessed, so privileged to be at my desk at this moment.”

The speed of social media struck some as an epochal moment in news coverage. “If anyone isn’t a believer in Twitter as an amazingly powerful news vehicle, last night should convert you,” tweeted Chris Cillizza of the political website The Fix.

Twitter said that it saw its highest sustained rate of tweets. There was an average of 3,440 tweets-per-second from 10:45 p.m. – 12:30 a.m. EST, according to the site. At 11 p.m. EST, there were 5,106 tweets-per-second.

Parody outraced news. Even before CBS had reported bin Laden’s death, a tweet came from Eric Stangel, co-head writer on David Letterman’s “Late Show”: “Report: President Obama to announce Osama bin Laden is dead. I won’t believe it until I see the death certificate.”

Internet traffic surged above normal Sunday night usage. Akamail Technologies Inc., which delivers about 20 percent of the world’s Internet traffic, said that global page views for the roughly 100 news portals for which it delivers content peaked at more than 4.1 million page views around 11 p.m. ET. CNN, Fox News Channel and MSNBC had nearly 15 million viewers between 11 p.m. and midnight Sunday when Obama spoke, led by CNN’s 7.8 million. That time on a typical Sunday, the three networks are pulling in 1.7 million viewers, according to the Nielsen Co.

At CNN, which reported at 10 p.m. that Obama would speak, it was another 45 minutes until the speech was connected to bin Laden, even as Wolf Blitzer provided some cryptic teases: “I have my suspicion on what the president is going to announce. Probably something we’ve been looking forward to, at least from a U.S. perspective, for quite a while.” CNN’s John King eventually reported the news.

Blitzer conceded Monday that he had a pretty good idea what the news would be when sources assured him that the president’s news was not about Libya.

“I didn‘t report it because you don’t report something like that based on a suspicion, based on a hunch, based on your journalistic gut instinct,” Blitzer said. “You’ve got to get confirmation. And you can’t just confirm from one source. You need at least two really excellent sources.”

It’s no longer unusual these days for social media to reflect the first stirrings of a story, said Mark Kraham, chairman of the Radio Television Digital News Association and news director for WHAG-TV in Hagerstown, Md. Yet Kraham said that conventional media showed care and proper caution in reporting the story through. People would have been offended or hurt if news organizations had reported a story of this magnitude and it turned out to be false, he said.

If social media outlets were quick on the story, many posts were quick to point followers to mainstream news organizations, or to pass on links — such as Griffin’s advice to turn on CNN.

Even Urbahn put the brake lights on a rapidly spreading trend: “Stories about ‘the death of (mainstream media)‘ because of my first ’tweet’ are greatly exaggerated,” he tweeted on Monday.

The Newseum, the Washington-based museum devoted to journalism, saw its website crash on Monday because of the crush of people who went to the site to see digital replicas of the front pages from newspapers around the world, a service it has offered since 2002. The site was processing more than 2,800 requests per seconds when it crashed, said Paul Sparrow, senior vice president for broadcasting.

In New York, where nearly 3,000 people died at the World Trade Center, some of those front pages were blunt: “Rot in Hell” was the message on the New York Daily News front page. “U.S. nails the bastard,” the New York Post said on its cover.

Broadcast networks readied special reports on Monday, expanding their evening news broadcasts to an hour to cover the story.

ABC News touted exclusive video of the blood-soaked scene at bin Laden’s compound, obtained through a Pakistani-based producer for the network; ABC would not say how the producer got the footage. On Sunday night, the network had to backtrack from an initial Brian Ross report that bin Laden had been killed several days earlier along with about two dozen other al-Qaida operatives.

Ten years ago Aaron Brown worked all day at CNN, broadcasting from a rooftop with the smoke from the World Trade Center in the background. Many Americans got the terrible news from him that day; now he typifies how news delivery is changing in explaining how he first heard bin Laden was dead.

“I was at dinner here and my phone beeped,” said Brown, who now teaches journalism at Arizona State University in Phoenix.

___

AP Entertainment Writer Jake Coyle and Associated Press writer Lauren McCullough in New York, and Brett Zongker in Washington contributed to this report.

Comments (22)

  • salvawhoray
    Posted on May 5, 2011 at 4:21pm

    what the hell is a tweet?

    Report Post » salvawhoray  
  • NeverShoutTaylor
    Posted on May 3, 2011 at 3:11pm

    I was walking out of my den when I heard the announcement. I whipped my head around to the television and my jaw dropped.

    Report Post » NeverShoutTaylor  
  • sandyn
    Posted on May 3, 2011 at 7:30am

    Let’s be clear on this: OBAMA did NOT kill Bin Laden. An American Navy Seal, who Obama just a few weeks ago was debating on whether or not to PAY, did. Obama just happened to be the one in office when American soldiers finally found OBL and took him out. This is NOT an Obama victory, but an AMERICAN victory!! REPOST – someone put this on facebook. My question is, if the SEALs had a union and decided to call in sick instead of go on the mission, would Obama be out there in his comfortable shoes walking the line with THEM?

    Report Post »  
  • Eric_The_Red_State
    Posted on May 3, 2011 at 5:13am

    I am STILL waiting for the other shoe to drop.
    I would not be surprised if this does not trigger some backlash on a major scale.
    Personally – I think we Americans looked a little stupid having a party in front of the White House.
    Do we want to show the world that we can be just like those angry mobs in the middle east chanting and pumping fists in the air… ? I thought we were better than that.

    Dont get me wrong – I am glad he’s no longer a threat – and I am glad he can’t be made into a martyr now that they buried him at sea (wink wink) – but I don’t think the mob mentality looks good on anybody. Especially Americans. (Reminds me of a southern “Hangin’)

    Report Post » Eric_The_Red_State  
  • Robert-CA
    Posted on May 3, 2011 at 1:33am

    it‘s so weird we didn’t hear anything from the ACLU .

    Report Post » Robert-CA  
  • caprica
    Posted on May 3, 2011 at 1:31am

    Now we should get geroge soros ! he is the domestic terrorist !

    Report Post »  
  • GadsdenPatriot
    Posted on May 3, 2011 at 1:11am

    Hey Osama, I‘m glad you’re dead, I‘m glad you’re dead, I‘m glad you’re dead. I like the tune of that, maybe it should be a song.

    Report Post » GadsdenPatriot  
    • Robert-CA
      Posted on May 3, 2011 at 1:46am

      Maybe Ray Stevens will write one & I’m happy too :) :) :) :) :) :)

      Report Post » Robert-CA  
    • riseandshine
      Posted on May 3, 2011 at 3:22am

      He’s probably been dead for a decade

      Report Post » riseandshine  
    • riseandshine
      Posted on May 3, 2011 at 3:37am

      Well…not quite a decade…He was around long enough to say he didn’t do it….Good luck finding that old recording….Controlled demolition, folks….Don’t everyone pile on at once….Night night

      Report Post » riseandshine  
  • thepatriotdave
    Posted on May 3, 2011 at 12:58am

    “It’s amazing to see how social media played a part in it.”
    ———————————————————————————

    Well excuse me if I’m not impressed, this is just a natural occurance. The easist, fastest, and cheapest way to communicate will always be the winner in the info age, it’s a natural. How much faster can it get though is anyones guess right now.

    Time for a real leader…
    http://www.AmericasTeaPartyNews.com

    Report Post » thepatriotdave  
    • Showtime
      Posted on May 3, 2011 at 1:09am

      Thanks for the link. Did you see the results of the poll? Glad the results were sent to Allen West!

      Report Post » Showtime  
  • Showtime
    Posted on May 3, 2011 at 12:54am

    I thought it was strange that the soldier learned of it on FaceBook, before he was officially told.

    Report Post » Showtime  
    • Showtime
      Posted on May 3, 2011 at 9:59am

      Blaze – I did not wake up until 9:00 this morning. Someone has hacked my account. I just sent you an email about this, but I fogot to go see what the last story was before I pushed Send.

      Report Post » Showtime  
  • Showtime
    Posted on May 3, 2011 at 12:53am

    Geraldo must have gotten a tweet because I thought he was going to whiz his pants to keep from blurting out ahead of Obama’s announcement.

    Report Post » Showtime  
    • Snowleopard {gallery of cat folks}
      Posted on May 3, 2011 at 1:14am

      Guess Heraldo must still be stinging from the time he thought he found Al Capones vault and dug into the east river instead.

      Report Post » Snowleopard {gallery of cat folks}  
    • theonefromabove
      Posted on May 3, 2011 at 1:46am

      It was pretty dramatic from what I saw.

      http://politicalbowl.com – Political Videos

      Report Post »  
    • AnAppealToGod
      Posted on May 3, 2011 at 1:55am

      My dinner took 20 minutes to cook…………………..big deal.

      Report Post » AnAppealToGod  
    • BigSky
      Posted on May 3, 2011 at 3:22am

      I don’t see what the big deal was. The White House said Obama was going to speak and about an hour later he spoke. So it wasn’t like they were in a rush to let everyone in on the good news.

      Report Post » BigSky  
    • staggerlee32
      Posted on May 3, 2011 at 5:18am

      LOL… Geraldo looked like he was having a wet day dream.

      Report Post » staggerlee32  
    • Issachar Crust
      Posted on May 3, 2011 at 7:31am

      People, this is a circus act side show, fully meant to distract you from our real problems facing the nation. Don’t get me wrong, if he is dead – great thing, but he was hardly a catalyst of THE BASE. I’ve told you what is to happen here, go back to the PIE charts, and then read my blogs on the subject. And now the slight of hand begins for the Treasury, and that is what I was alluding to in my blogs, about more things to discuss. Now it is time to discuss that. Tax cheat Timmy, is going to do so wizardry to extend the ceiling being reached, he is going to do some more damage to the country to cover for the communist ideologues on the left and progressive republicans. Suspending state and local bond sales, sure will extend it, but at the detriment of said entities. Sure tax receipts are up a bit, because the economy was just starting to inch it’s way back, but then JAPAN had it’s engines cut off. When the QE2 and the fraud stimulus run out in June, or thereabouts, the engine of America will die too. I don;t have a crystal ball, no sir, I just read between the lines, as an analyst I have to do that. I could be off on my timing, it could take longer for the ultimate collapse of our economy, but collapse it will, I would bet every dollar I have on that FACT. Our debt, our unfunded liabilies and our NEGATIVE equity will be our undoing, and there is absolutely NOTHING you or I can do about it. The Gov’t perpetuates the lie, to keep us all in check – look for STAGFLATION to come on strong now. The window for preparation is so close to being shut, it is not funny. The anarchists, communists, islamo-fascists and illegals are coming together, with the aid of union organization. They will not go down easily, they are thugs, and killers all. When the have-nots have no food in their belly, the carnage will start soon after – there is little time to warn any more. I feel some of you here GET IT, but the vast majority of America has their heads in the sand, and they too will soon become the have-nots, and join forces with the organized killers about to be unleashed upon you. I speak partly from experience from my days in Jamaica, the other part is, I use my brainpower that God gave me – simple stuff really. But you see it is the obvious that everyone is missing – I will leave that up to you to figure out. Good luck with that!

      God Bless America, the asleep!

      A Patriot.

      Report Post »  
    • 79USMC83
      Posted on May 3, 2011 at 8:53am

      What has high walls and barbed wire on top???? A freaking PRISON !!!! Did the Paki’s have him under arrest?

      Report Post »  

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