As the Sunday night darkened in United States, some major journalists received a three-word e-mail that simply read, "Get to work."
The nation's television anchors and newspaper editors did not know, at first, that President Obama would be announcing the death of Osama bin Laden, an extraordinary development in the nearly 10-year-long war against terrorism waged by the United States and its allies, Brian Stelter wrote in New York Times.
Although that speculation was not aired out on television immediately, it did erupt on Twitter and other social networking sites, the report noted.
Keith Urbahn, the chief of staff for the former defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld, wrote at the time when Obama must be writing his speech, "So I'm told by a reputable person they have killed Osama Bin Laden. Hot damn."
Mr. Urbahn quickly added, "Don't know if it's true, but let's pray it is." He was credited by many on the web with breaking the news, though he did not have first-hand confirmation.
Within minutes, anonymous sources at the Pentagon and the White House informed reporters the same report. ABC, CBS and NBC interrupted programming across the country at almost the same minute, 10:45 pm., with the news.
"We're hearing absolute jubilation throughout government," the ABC News correspondent Martha Raddatz reported, the report stated.
Brian Williams, an NBC News anchor, told viewers, "This story started to leak out in the public domain largely when some Congressional staffers started to make phone calls."
Mr. Obama's address, initially planned for 10:30 pm., was delayed repeatedly. CNN reported that he was writing the address himself, the report added.
By 11 pm, the news was spreading virally around the world. At that time there were more than a dozen Facebook posts with the word "bin Laden" every single second.
The New York Post's Web site blared, "We Got Him!" The Huffington Post front page read, "Dead." Around the country, Americans gathered around televisions to digest the news. "This ends a chapter in the global war on terrorism which has defined a generation," the NBC correspondent Richard Engel said.
Obama confirmed bin Laden's death at 11:35 pm. Almost immediately, there was speculation in the media about whether the Obama administration would show visual evidence of the death.
Shortly before midnight, the Al Jazeera English network showed live pictures of a growing crowd outside the White House chanting "USA! USA!"
