This past semester, I took an introduction to news writing and reporting course. My professor decided that in our day and age we should learn how to live tweet events. However, instead of having us develop tweets for a current event, he had us write them based on a newspaper from 1865, when president Lincoln was shot. Here are those "tweets:"
1. A shot has been fired at Ford’s Theater. President Lincoln & family are there.
2. The theater was crowded for a production of ‘The American Cousin,’ shot was fired during a pause in the third act.
3. Groans from Mrs. Lincoln indicate that the President has been shot.
4. Suspect rushed to the front of the Lincoln’s box waving a dagger in his right hand.
5. The suspect was shouting ‘Sic semper tyrannis’ and leapt from the box onto the stage.
6. Suspect ran across the stage and escaped through the rear of the theater on horseback. A common single-barreled pocket pistol was found in the President’s box.
7. There has been a rush to the president’s box— “stand back and give him air.”
8. President Lincoln has been shot through the head, some of his brain is said to be “oozing out,” he has been removed to a private house near the theater.
9. The Surgeon General and others have been sent to tend to the President.
10. Surgeons have exhausted every effort. The wound was fatal. President Lincoln is dead.
