The Navy Yard Shooting and Brand Journalism

Aaron Alexis opened fire at the Washington Naval Yard on Monday, September 16, 2013 and took the lives of 12 innocent civilians. The U.S. Navy (@USNavy) broke the news via Twitter less than 20 minutes after the first shots were fired inside the building.

Throughout the day, the U.S. Navy’s Twitter account shared locations and phone numbers so family members could reunite with their loved ones. They shared links to live White House feeds as President Obama spoke about the tragedy. They shared press releases, statements from the Secretary of the Navy (@SECNAV) and the Navy’s Chief of information (@chinfo), and up-to-the-minute information about the suspect, the victims and the situation in general.

I found this very interesting; the Navy Yard shooting goes to show it is no longer certain that breaking news will come from mainstream media outlets. With the development of social media and technology comes an increase in citizen and brand journalism, as mentioned in Chapter 13 of Share This. According to David Meerman Scott, author of New Rules of Marketing and PR, "brand journalism is when any organisation - business-to-business company, consumer product company, the military, nonprofits, government agencies, politicians, churches, rock bands, solo entrepreneurs - creates valuable information and shares it with the world." This is exactly what the U.S. Navy did Monday morning; they had valuable breaking news to share and they did so via their own social media rather than traditional media.

The U.S. Navy Twitter account went from tweeting about Navy history in 1917 to breaking news in less than two hours, gaining thousands of retweets and followers in the process. The U.S. Navy created the hashtag #NavyYardShooting and Twitter users have since followed this hashtag to keep up with the news in real-time, engage in the conversation, and offer their prayers and support.