On November 25th, 2010 a story broke that you may have read about a man who was beaten and robbed when he jumped into what he thought was a taxi cab. The story is appalling.
But did you know that the actually story went viral throughout Twitter and Facebook the day before and actually occurred the day before that? Here’s how.
Traditional media sources, perhaps rightly, can’t report news like this unless someone reports it to the police. It took time for the police to acknowledge (and perhaps for the victim to come forward).
However, the day after the alleged assault Rhinnon, a friend of the victim, blogged about it warning her fellow Calgarians. After she blogged about it she tweeted, other people re-tweeted; and she posted on Facebook, others shared on Facebook.
Now, not all stories are ‘breaking news’. Most like these probably do come out a day or two after they occur. But this is merely another indicator of how social media is taking over the traditional media landscape by delivering news not only in a timely manner, a full reporting day after.