Microblogging site Twitter was the first to report the news of the hostage crisis involving gunman James Lee at the Discovery Channel's headquarters in Silver Spring, Maryland on Wednesday.

Before media persons reached the scene, Twitter's photo-sharing service Twitpic showed photographs of an alleged hostage-taker in the premises of the channel's office. The picture was reportedly clicked by a Discovery employee from a window several floors above the scene of action.

Photographs of the rescue team rushing to the office clinging to the sides of their vehicle, and another one showing the unloading of a bomb-detecting robot, were also added soon.

The tweet stream about the hostage crisis quickly featured a manifesto of demands by Lee, a link to his MySpace page and a YouTube video featuring him.

Half an hour after the social networking site broke the news, mainstream news organisations started adding updates on their web sites and Twitter alerts.

Later in the day, the Washington Police shot Lee dead. He was reported to have stormed Discovery's office to protest against shows aired on the channel.