<![CDATA[Maryann Batlle · Storify]]>https://storify.com/maryannbatlleNodeJS RSS ModuleWed, 22 Oct 2014 15:25:04 GMT<![CDATA[Shoot First: Mattress Fire at Westward Ho ]]>

While studying at the second floor library in the Cronkite building, I noticed a swarm of emergency vehicles line Central Avenue and Fillmore Street outside of the Westward Ho high rise. I left the library with my iPhone, checked out the scene and started tweeting.

Storified by Maryann Batlle · Thu, Oct 27 2011 06:19:14

A whole bunch of fire trucks at Westward Ho ... #PHX http://yfrog.com/ntsjswj · MaryannBatlle

There was a faint scent of smoke in the air.

From the Cronkite parking lot, I counted about a dozen emergency response crew cars and trucks, the bulk of which were from the Phoenix Fire Department.

Then a couple of local camera crews showed up.

News trucks have arrived to the emergency site, too ... #PHX http://yfrog.com/nx763ikj · MaryannBatlle

I crossed the street to get closer to the building, and I spoke to an officer who told me there had been a fire in one of the apartments.


There was a fire in the building but it's under control now. "They're just cleaning up," an officer told me. #PHX http://yfrog.com/kgrkbwaj · MaryannBatlle

I left and returned to the library where I searched Twitter for more information.

The Arizona Republic tweeted that it may have been a mattress fire.

I later found the online videos and articles from both of the aforementioned television stations.

As a result of the fire, the building was evacuated and two people were treated for smoke inhalation, according to the stations' reports.

After all of that snooping, I decided to follow Joe Henke's brilliant suggestion ...

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http://storify.com/maryannbatlle/shoot-first-mattress-fire-at-westward-hohttp://storify.com/maryannbatlle/shoot-first-mattress-fire-at-westward-hoTue, 04 Oct 2011 19:26:52 GMT
<![CDATA["We are not evacuating Rikers Island": New York City Mayor's decision gets mixed reviews]]>

New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg chose not to evacuate Rikers Island -- where ten inmate detention facilities are located -- before Hurricane Irene made landfall. Human rights organizations and many Twitter users criticized the decision throughout the weekend.

Storified by Maryann Batlle · Thu, Oct 27 2011 07:10:49

While Hurricane Irene swirled toward New England during the weekend, a storm of criticism aimed itself at New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg (@MikeBloomberg) over his evacuation plans.

 

Despite ordering a historic mandatory evacuation of some 300,000 people who live in low-lying areas of New York City, Bloomberg decided not to evacuate the Rikers Island correctional facilities, which house about 12,000 inmates at any given time.

Bloomberg outlined the city's final evacuation plans at a press conference on Friday and encouraged everyone in low-lying areas to be out by 5 p.m. Saturday citing potential dangers to public safety. 


"Nature is a force more powerful than any of us, and it really is better to be safe than sorry," Bloomberg said.

According to evacuation plans, the city has three different flood zones.

NYC evacuation zones map legend · flickr.com

(Image courtesy of Google Maps)

More areas were added to the plan -- including the Rockaways, which is in Zone B -- but Rikers Island was not. 

Below is a map of the plan and the map's legend. Rikers Island (circled in red) is not shaded as an evacuation area despite being surrounded by orange and yellow.


(Click the image to enlarge.)



NYC evacuation zones Map · flickr.com
NYC evacuation zones map legend · flickr.com

(Images courtesy of Google Maps)

The City of New York Department of Corrections website announced via a bolded headline at the top its homepage that visits and property pick up were suspended Saturday and Sunday, however. 


(Click the image to enlarge.)

City of New York Department of Correction homepage · flickr.com

Solitary Watch (@solitarywatch), a group that keeps an eye on "solitary confinement and other forms of torture in U.S. prisons," was one of the first organizations to speak out against Bloomberg's decision on its website.

From the web post:


"According to the New York City Department of Corrections' own website, more than three-quarters of Rikers Island's 400 acres are built on landfill -- which is generally thought to be more vulnerable to natural disasters. Its ten jails have a capacity of close to 17,000 inmates, and normally house at least 12,000, including juveniles and large numbers of prisoners with mental illness -- not to mention pre-trial detainees who have yet to be convicted of any crime. There are also hundreds of corrections officers at work on the island."

At another press conference, Bloomberg defended his decision by citing that Rikers Island is allegedly on higher ground. 


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http://storify.com/maryannbatlle/rikershttp://storify.com/maryannbatlle/rikersTue, 30 Aug 2011 19:35:42 GMT
<![CDATA[Tell us what you really think: "#F---YouWashington" goes viral on Twitter]]>

An f-bomb hashtag aimed at Washington, D.C. politicos went viral on Twitter thanks to one man's social media crusade. [Warning: This report contains profanity.]

Storified by Maryann Batlle · Thu, Oct 27 2011 07:48:59

The stalled debt-ceiling talks pissed Jeff Jarvis off. 

On his Twitter timeline last Saturday night, Jarvis, a journalist and an associate professor at CUNY, sent an explicit communiqué to Washington, D.C. politicos.


He urged others to express their own outrage.


After finding his catchphrase, Jarvis centralized his message and promoted it.

Jarvis' foul language led one of his followers to take him to task.

But Jarvis did not retreat.

Another user suggested turning Jarvis' impassioned malediction into a hashtag.

Doing so turned a single person's complaint into a collective campaign aimed at making "#F---YouWashington" a trending topic.

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http://storify.com/maryannbatlle/tell-us-what-you-really-think-f-you-washington-hashttp://storify.com/maryannbatlle/tell-us-what-you-really-think-f-you-washington-hasMon, 25 Jul 2011 04:49:13 GMT
<![CDATA[Turn the Other Tweet: Governor Rick Scott's Communications Director and a Journalist Spar]]>

After Marc Caputo reported that Governor Rick Scott used stimulus money in the Florida budget, Scott's Communications Director, Brian Burgess, went on the offensive against Caputo on Twitter. The two tweeted accusations and insults at each other for about an hour for all their followers to see.

Storified by Maryann Batlle · Thu, Oct 27 2011 08:30:24

While the Miami Heat faced off with the Dallas Mavericks on the court in the first game of the NBA finals, a Miami Herald journalist and a Florida government official hosted their own brawl on Twitter.


Marc Caputo, a political reporter for the Herald, and Brian Burgess, Governor Rick Scott's communications director, shared their disdain for each other 140-characters at a time.


Governor Scott, who has publicly denounced the use of federal stimulus dollars at the state level, kept $370 million of such funds in this year's budget, according to Caputo.


Caputo broke the story for the Herald and the St. Petersburg Times this afternoon.

From the Article:
"The stimulus money Scott and Republican legislators approved touch every corner of the state: $290 million to improve electronic medical records, $4.2 million to aid disadvantaged children, $3.2 million for fighting wildfires, $12.5 million for drug courts, $8.6 million for county health departments, $1 million to fight infectious diseases, and $4.4 million to help public defenders and prosecutors." (Source: Miami Herald)

Caputo also posted video on Naked Politics, the Herald's political blog, that he claimed shows Scott engaging in a dreaded "flip flop":


He tweeted a link to the news story earlier in the afternoon and another to the accompanying video later:

After Caputo released the video link on the social media site, Scott's Communications Director, Brian Burgess, engaged in a public twitter-spat with Caputo.



Aware that others were probably taking note, Caputo responded with a meta-tweet that addressed both Burgess and the larger audience:

Burgess then attacked Caputo's journalistic integrity ...

... which led Caputo to defend his ethics and reporting.

But Burgess was unconvinced. 

Instead, he accused Caputo of yellow journalism and decided to end his participation in the spat.

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http://storify.com/maryannbatlle/turn-the-other-tweet-governor-rick-scottshttp://storify.com/maryannbatlle/turn-the-other-tweet-governor-rick-scottsWed, 01 Jun 2011 14:01:35 GMT
<![CDATA[Osama Bin Laden Killed; Social Networks Spread the News]]>

Twitter broke the news about Osama bin Laden's death. How it all spread ...

Storified by Maryann Batlle · Thu, Oct 27 2011 08:58:47

After more than a decade of hunting, the United States government got its man — Osama bin Laden. 


As the reported head of the terrorist network Al-Qaeda, bin Laden, a Saudi Arabian financier, infamously took credit for the 9/11 attacks in 2001, which killed more than 3,000 people. He was also involved in other plots, including the 1998 bombings of two embassies in Kenya and Tanzania that resulted in the deaths of about 224 people.

For 13 years, bin Laden has been the FBI's most wanted criminal — and its most elusive. 

But Sunday the terror suspect was killed after Obama authorized a special-ops military raid of bin Laden's hideout: a million-dollar* compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan. 

[*NOTE: The latest reports about the value of the house and other details conflict some of the original information released. I have updated this report wherever possible to reflect these inconsistencies.

As more time passes, the details continue to shift. Garance Franke-Ruta, senior editor at The Atlantic, calls these shifting narratives a "slippery slope": http://bit.ly/mQ0Zhw ]

Without giving any explanation about what his speech would be about, the White House announced President Barack Obama was to address the nation.

On Twitter, speculation about what Obama was going to say gave way to breaking news, tweet by tweet.

Keith Urbahn, chief of staff for Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, tweeted about the number one terror suspect's supposed death a couple of hours before President Obama's speech.

Once he was caught up in all of the retweets and replies, Urbahn urged everyone to disregard his tweet and wait for White House confirmation.
CBS producer Jill Jackson also received credit for starting the Twitter buzz. 

But the man who truly broke the news had no idea what he was witnessing. From his home in Abbottabad, Sohaib Athar "unwittingly" described events and sounds of the U.S. military operation in his realtime tweets.

The report he shared from the Pakistani news agency has since been updated and states: "The helicopter then came down in a plot." Below, you can still see the developing story's original lede.
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http://storify.com/maryannbatlle/osama-bin-ladenhttp://storify.com/maryannbatlle/osama-bin-ladenWed, 04 May 2011 05:02:53 GMT
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