Bin Laden News Broke on Twitter

Politico reports:

It was the kind of historic news that makes you remember where you were when you heard it.

And for many, that place was on Twitter.

A 9:45 p.m. ET tweet from Dan Pfeiffer, the White House communications director, alerted the public to what the networks were also learning: “POTUS to address the national tonight at 10:30 PM Eastern Time.”

The New York Times’s Brian Stelter put together a tick-tock on how the news of just what that announcement contained seeped out via Twitter, which exploded after Keith Urbahn, Donald Rumsfeld’s former chief of staff, tweeted: “So I’m told by a reputable person they have killed Osama bin Laden. Hot damn.”

The networks broke into their programming in preparation for the president’s speech, and for a few awkward moments, anchors struggled with the weight of the as-yet-unconfirmed news.

“I’ve just been told by a senior White House official that we at CNN have been very responsible,” Wolf Blitzer said around 10:35 p.m., adding that “they deeply appreciate the restraint” and “other news organizations are wildly speculating right now.”

Meanwhile, Geraldo Rivera on Fox News was adding many caveats, but passing on what he was hearing.