Osama bin Laden is dead, and we have the body and proof. Last night, it was announced around 10 p.m. that the President would be making an official announcement later that night. However, before Mr. President ever made his announcement, journalistic efforts and twitter combined to leak the news. In this increasingly digital age, stories are more frequently breaking over social media platforms. However, credit must still be given to journalists for doing their work, and getting the news out. They are still the ones behind the scenes doing all the work, it is just being disseminated over different platforms, and not just in the next day's paper or in an over the air broadcast. These new platforms allow journalists to not only get the news out faster, but they also open up access to more information and sources that can be used to get the news in the first place. If this had happened 20 years ago, people would have had to anxiously await Obama's broadcast in order to find out what was going on. But, thanks to good journalism and the Internet, America pretty much knew what was going on instantaneously.
EDIT: A twitterer from Pakistan accidentally broke the news first. This is just one more way in which social media are changing our world and journalism.
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