At 11:05 PM EST an earthquake of 5.6 magnitude hit Northern California; as of yet there is no major damage or injury to report.
By 11:17 PM EST there were reports that Twitter was lighting up with first hand documentary about the earthquake.
By 11:24 PM EST I received my first alert via a blog posting noting how much activity was on Twitter about the earthquake.
At 11:53 PM EST CNN published their first mention of the earthquake - 48 minutes after the event, at least 36 minutes after the Twitter community was heavily documenting, and 29 minutes after Google Reader had the chance to index blog articles that had already been written.
Social journal journalism, first hand / mass / personal documentary, leveraging incredibly strong social media tools, is continually showing its strength, its significance, and why it needs to be adopted sooner than later into the mainstream media, as well as through public consumption.
