This morning there was a fatal accident at the intersection by my office in the WillowBrook Office Park in Perinton.
Fire and Rescue units arrived on the scene at 7:35 a.m. according to the Monroe County 911 site.
News reports say a car turning left at Woodcliff Drive hit a motorcycle traveling on Rt. 96.
Traffic on Rt. 96 in the area of the WoodCliff was snarled for several hours due to the accident reconstruction and the investigation.
After driving around for 40 minutes, I found an alternate route to the office and I arrived just before 9 AM.
When I came inside someone in the hall told me that I was the first to post anything about this on Twitter at about 8:30 AM, an hour after it happened.
I was fairly sure that I wasn’t the first – and I wasn’t, @MCFIREEMSREPORT was – but I was curious as to how the local media used Twitter to report the story.
I was one of those trying to figure out how to get to work, searching online and Twitter for the details of exactly which roads were open and which roads were closed.
Here’s what I found… (after I got to work):
Only one local media outlet Tweeted about the accident!! (as of 10:22 AM when I posted this, almost 3 hours after the crash).
The NBC TV affiliate @news10nbc tweeted at 9:01 AM, 17 minutes after they posted the story on their site.
None of the other sites posted anything to Twitter.
Here are the times the other media posted their initial story on their sites:
8:55 AM – MPNnow.com, the local newspaper @messengerpost
9:00 AM – 13 WHAM / ABC TV @13WHAM
9:00 AM – The Democrat and Chronicle newspaper in Rochester @dandc
9:18 AM – YNN, local TV station @YNN_Rochester
9:23 AM – FOX / CBS TV @news_8
No time stamp on story – WXXI Public Radio @WXXIrochester