by Chris Bodenner
The mainstream media was no match for the early reporting of citizen journalists on the Discovery gunman:
There were noteworthy documents linked in the massive tweet stream, too: a rambling manifesto of demands by Lee, his MySpace page and a YouTube video of Lee allegedly throwing money into the air on a busy street a few blocks from the Discovery building, in 2008. TV can offer live pictures of an event (and local stations were on the scene quickly on Wednesday), and newspapers can provide context and fact-checking, but for raw speed and real-time eyewitness accounts, it's now virtually impossible for the mainstream media to keep pace with the likes of Twitter. The service enables anyone equipped with a smartphone to tell the world what he or she sees in 140-character bursts. Twitpic (as well as similar sites) can let them see it.
(Image source here)