Twitter, not mainstream media, was the first to break the news of a gunman taking three hostages at Discovery Communications headquarters (home of the Discovery Channel) on September 1, 2010. The information came from an employee inside the Silver Spring, Maryland building via a photo posted on Twitpic.
Within seconds, people were learning about the crisis via Twitter. Soon, the “Discovery Channel building” became the top trending topic on Twitter with “Gunman” not far behind. According to a long case study analysis in the SocialMedia Examiner, the rest of the day and evening, employees largely chose social media to let their families, friends and fans know they were safe. Likewise, those families, friends and fans commented back by the thousands on Twitter, Facebook and the company’s blog.
But the communications team at Discovery decided not to follow suit out of concern for safety. They very deliberately chose not to post anything from corporate Twitter, Facebook and blog accounts out of concern the hostage taker might be online and become angry or provoked by official statements on social media. But Discovery Communications specifically chose to let employees tweet and post as they desired after evacuation.
Working with the police, Discovery Communications quickly evacuated 100 children in the onsite daycare center and 1,900 employees minus the hostages. Hours later, the hostage standoff ended with all employees safe when police shot and killed the gunman.
After the hostages were free, Discovery collected all the facts and posted an official statement on its blog thanking law enforcement officers and everyone for their concern. Then, they pushed links to that message out through Discovery corporate Facebook and Twitter accounts, as well as accounts for specific Discovery networks and shows. That reached the public and employees faster than through traditional media.
