Twitter Joins CNN Reporter's Fight to Save Her Brother's Life
As a CNN corespondent based in New York City, Veronica De La Cruz has the kind of free-speech platform most people can only dream of, yet when it comes to dealing with a family medical emergency, she’s as vulnerable as we all are to the whims of the erratic U.S. health care system.
Her brother, Eric, aged 27 is dying in Nevada. He needs a heart transplant. De La Cruz has been lobbying Sen. Harry Reid and the rest of Nevada’s Congressional delegation, as well as the Department of Health and Human Services in a one-woman attempt to bring attention to her brother’s plight, but to no avail.
Now, in what may be a last resort, De La Cruz has turned to Twitter. There, her plea caught the attention of The Expert, who was instrumental in a successful Twitter-based effort to locate a missing teenager last month. The Expert has alrted his more than 17,000 Followers on Twitter to the case, which appears to be helping to trigger some of the really big names on twitter to the cause.
These people could potentially unleash the weight of hundreds of thousands of Americans via the power of social media to bring new pressure on authorities in this matter.
Stay tuned: We will update this breaking story as it develops. If Reid and others in Congress did not feel the need to listen to De La Cruz in the pre-Twitter phase of her quest to save her brother’s life, that may now be about to change.
In addition to serving as a BNET Media analyst/blogger, David Weir is a veteran journalist and the author of several books. Weir is a co-founder and vice-president of the Center for Investigative Reporting, as well as an editorial board member of The Nation.
BNET User Analysis