As you likely know, there was a deadly shooting in Arizona yesterday afternoon that claimed the lives of six people, according to The New York Times. At approximately 2:00pm, Caitie Parker, a high school class mate of the shooter, noted on Twitter that the incident happened "2 minutes from my house." When the media discovered her, likely because of a smart interview Anthony DeRosa was conducting with here, at least 35 public requests for comment, phone calls and interviews—from local newspapers to national news networks—came into Catie on Twitter from all over the country, as well as overseas. [UPDATE: Caitie disclosed she received another 32 messages via Facebook, DM and email.] This included representatives and reporters from the AP, ABC News, CNN, People Magazine and The New York Times, (where a reporter eagerly exclaimed in an earlier tweet: "Let's crowdsource this: Anyone seen tweets from people who say they know shooting suspect Jared Lee #Loughner?"). When Caitie explained she couldn't manage all the requests, Gawker reporter Adrian Chen probably offered her the best advice when he suggested: "You should write a single statement and release it via twitlonger."
Teresa Gorman from PBS "NewsHour" was the first to arrive in Caitie’s twitter stream. After Caitie made mention of the proximity of her house to the shooting, Gorman beat everybody to the punch and quickly inquired: “Anything going on near you w/ the shooting of the congresswoman?”
Caitie has since informed she is not giving any more interviews. That's ok with People Magazine reporter Steve Helling, who happily noted high school classmates of the shooter "are coming out of the woodwork now." NYC The Blog's Facebook page has a photo album containing screenshots of every media request (38 to date at 10:30pm) sent to Caitie publicly via Twitter. Add them to your rolodex!
Previously:
- Governor Andrew Cuomo 'Doesn't Have Time To Twitter' But Someone On His Team Does
- Twitter's Built In Memory Hole
- Twetching The Tweets Of Twitters
- The New York Times First Ever Sponsored Tweet
- Print Media In New York City Embrace Advertisements Delivered Via Twitter
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