In both cases the announcements came via Twitter and some are using the story to declare that traditional news media and their reporters have been replaced by citizen journalists. But before we totally write off the traditional news organizations, let’s take another look at the facts.  Apparently Mr. Urbahn’s later tweets suggested that he was only reporting a rumor and that he wasn’t sure it was true.  Further he announced that his source was actually a contact within one of the traditional media news gathering organizations.  As for Mr. Athar, a tweet declaring that a helicopter was hovering over his neighborhood (in which he presumably did know that Osama Bin Laden was a resident) is hardly breaking the story.  Further, while we can go back now and connect the dots, I wonder how many Americans actually follow tweets of Mr. Ahar or any other Pakistani IT consultant.

My point:  Those who feel the need to declare that one medium (traditional mass media) is dead in order to promote the importance of another (social media networks) are WRONG.  The two are additive.  Traditional media outlets plus social media networks together deliver more and faster communication of news.  I can certainly guarantee that those fans at the Mets-Phillies baseball game who started chanting "USA-USA" weren’t all following either Urbahn or Ahar on Twitter but more likely got the news via phone or text message from – you guessed it - either directly from traditional news media feeds or from friends at home following those sources.  The learning should be that as marketers we need to concern ourselves with the content.  Improving the quality of that content and getting our stories delivered through as many credible sources as possible.  That includes both traditional media and those citizen journalists (your current loyal customers).