When two men were removed from a Philadelphia Starbucks by police at the behest of the store’s manager, a patron filmed the incident and posted it on Twitter, where it soon went viral.

After a second video was uploaded to YouTube,  the story made national news, writes Justin Peters at slate.com.

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The CEO of Starbucks has apologized for the incident and announced that all Starbucks employees will soon undergo training to recognize unconscious bias.

This story, it is safe to say, would not have been a story without Twitter and YouTube. In an earlier era, when the press was more consolidated, the Starbucks incident would almost surely not have made the news.

“Two men ejected from Starbucks” is not the sort of hook that would have once captured the imagination of a city editor. But citizen journalists, for better or worse, are not constrained by the blinders of a traditional newsroom.

To read the full story, click here.

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