Anna Eagar was just a regular pizza delivery girl in Utah, trying to make a buck and keep a low profile when she knocked on State Senator Curt Bramble’s front door. That was the moment that both their lives got a lot more complicated.
Senator Bramble is probably used to getting his way, but paying for a pizza with a personal check is not allowed at Nicolitalia Restaurant, so shy and withdrawn Anna was forced to refuse his check. The Senator got gruff, rude and a little belligerent. The matter was eventually resolved, but Anna needed to vent, so she did what many people her age do: She wrote about her experience and posted it on her blog:
From the tone he’s been using, I’d never have guessed he thought I was a “nice young lady” or even a human being with feelings.
That probably would’ve been the end of it, but the Internet is a strange place and sometimes things catch on fire and go viral for reasons that aren’t always clear. In this case, local media outlet KSL picked up the story after Nightside Radio host Alex Kirry stumbled on the blog post and asked Anna to come on the show. Soon, Anna Eagar was explaining her side of things on the evening news while Senator Bramble went incommunicado, laying low and hoping for the incident to blow over.
While it may seem like the mainstream media caused this event to go viral, that’s not totally the case. The web was both the medium for the initial, first-hand report, and the vehicle for the mainstream media to find the story so they could do their job of blowing it out of proportion. I’ve heard less and less complaining lately from mainstream journalists about blogs and the Internet because virtually all of them are finding stories and viewpoints on blogs that they would not have found otherwise.
And once again we see the Internet acting as a leveling agent; making it easier for “nobodies” like a pizza delivery girl to tangle with the Senate Majority leader — and win.