Chicago Tribune: http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/sns-rt-us-sept11-nbc-hackingtre7887kl-20110909,0,3086885.story
Sunday, September 11, 2011
The New York Times vs. The Chicago Tribune: NBC News Twitter Account Hacked
On the evening of September 9, 2011, NBC New’s Twitter account was hacked and a false threat claiming that a hijacked plane had crashed at the Ground Zero memorial in New York was tweeted. NBC News immediately disabled their Twitter account to prevent any future hacks and NBC profusely apologized for heightening the already possible threats that have been made by al Qaeda on New York City for the tenth anniversary of September 11. The New York Times (online) and The Chicago Tribune (online) both covered this story later that night on Friday, September 9, 2011. Although both stories were not on the home page of their respective news sites, The New York Times article, by Brian Stelter and Jennifer Preston, felt as though this story had more news value because its story was eleven paragraphs long and included more in depth information. The Chicago Tribune article (which was reported by Jill Serjeant and edited by Bob Tourtellotte and Cynthia Johnston) was only eight paragraphs and focused on different elements of the story. The New York Times titled its article, “Hackers Take Over NBC Twitter Account” and included no picture with the story. The article quotes the statement that NBC News’s anchor Brain Williams read on NBC news later that evening, as well a quote by Ryan Osborn, the director of social media for NBC News. This newspaper focused more on the reaction and response of NBC News to the hacked tweet, while The Chicago Tribune’s article concentrated more on the group that did the hoax, The Script Kiddies. The Chicago Tribune’s article titled, “NBC News Twitter hacked with fake attack messages” included a picture of the Twitter logo, the small blue bird. This newspaper's article title, brief story, picture and content made the article seem more casual compared to The New York Times account of the situation. The Tribune include quotes from the same statement given by Williams on NBC News at night, an excerpt from the Business Insider and a quotation from Melissa Bell (Washington Post blogger). Twitter is a worldwide social media site that many use as a source of both national and international news, so this prank tweet reached many people and caused some hysteria. Both stories highlighted how the wrongful information in the tweet worried people that read it, therefore it reflected badly upon the always-reliable NBC News twitter account. The New York Times article about this event centered its story around the apologetic nature of NBC News, not The Script Kiddies as The Chicago Tribune did.
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