Michael Jackson’s unfortunate passing is a sad event on many levels, and a moment to reflect upon the man’s rich life and career as well as a time to pass support – silent or loud – onto his family, friends and everyone who needs it now that the King of Pop has ceased to be.
For us here at TechCrunch, it’s also an opportunity to take a look at how media, old and new alike, handle news reporting and distribution in this day and age (as well as a sneak peek at how it’ll likely evolve in the near future).
Like many others, I had Twitter open in one of my browser tabs when the first reports of Jackson’s hospitalization and at the time rumored cardiac arrest started circulating. At first, there was no indication that the news had been confirmed by anyone and people were just frantically retweeting messages carrying lots of question marks while trying to find an online news source to serve as a beacon for further updates on the story. Quickly enough, people started linking to AOL’s online gossip powerhouse TMZ, which was the first to call out his passing away when everyone else was still referencing the hospitalization part.
Granted, TMZ may well not be the most credible source in the world (quick, which one is?) and there’s a possibility they just went with the story of Jackson dying as fact before it really was, but all that doesn’t matter anymore now. They called it first, and they got it right. We soon learned that, despite the fact many news blogs and sites were struggling to keep up with all the massive influx of people looking for more digital reports.
For a visualization of Twitter trending topics as they evolved in real-time, check out this video, courtesy of TwitScoop.
So TMZ broke the news and Twitter was red hot with all the chatter about it, approximately 40 minutes before the L.A. Times followed up with a confirmation of Jackson’s death on one of its blogs, citing its own sources. Not really that big a deal, but people did see the LAT follow-up as a more credible confirmation of what everyone was assuming already, which is fine, even if some of them minutes before couldn’t stop bashing TMZ over the so-called rumor-mongering they displayed.
But noteworthy, and somewhat disturbing in my view: most mainstream media who followed up on the story after these two outlets were mostly regurgitating and filtering what the two blogs had reported before them, more often than not without proper credit or attribution, let alone a link. Some of them, like NY Times blog Bits acknowledged Twitter to be the place to be for watercooler-type chatter about the events, yet practically none of them dared admit that blogs and Twitter had simply been quicker with spreading the facts than they were (and yes, we realize using both as a source for rock-solid news can be quite dangerous too, but that’s beside the point in this case).
A jaw-dropping case of being painfully out of touch with reality was to be found in this Chicago Tribune article, carrying the subtitle “TMZ leads with early details, while Los Angeles Times and AP do the heavy lifting”, in which we read nonsense like:
Gossip site TMZ.com, owned by Time Warner, was out in front with Jackson news and digital-era pipelines spread the word, as has happened before with other major celebrity news stories. But it was old media stalwarts that did the heavy lifting, with giants such as The Associated Press and the Web site of the L.A. Times, sister paper of the Chicago Tribune, reporting the fastest, most credible information on the emergency call for paramedics and ultimately his death.
Yes, I laughed out loud too. Chest-beating over old media doing the “heavy lifting” for blogs and Twitter, and being faster in reporting information than those new media when it was exactly the other way around is beyond ridiculous. TMZ was the first to report Jackson’s death, and its sources in this case proved to be as “credible” as those of any of the old-media laggards. Statements like the above are evidence of massive misunderstanding of the author – and he’ll certainly not be the only dinosaur thinking along these lines – of how the world of news distribution is evolving.
The author was also happy to find someone to back him up, this time Adam Fendelman, founder and publisher of entertainment news site HollywoodChicago.com, whose first response to his staff was when he was filled in on the news was apparently: “Are we sure?”.
Here’s what he reportedly said to the Chicago Tribune journalist:
“The Web and TV phenomenon that TMZ is is very good at fast-breaking and late-breaking news, but there’s an inherent problem with trust in the everyday consumer’s mind.”
Damn right and for the better too, but as far as I’m concerned you can replace TMZ with just about any news outlet out there, including the old big ones, who are rapidly becoming far less big and relevant.
To me, this whole thing just proves that mainstream media are justifiably freaking out with their eyes wide shut to what’s happening instead of learning and adapting to the new age of journalism.
Way to go TechCrunch for calling this out! Hope all the TMZ naysayers read it and realize while a gossip site, they do just as much reporting and investigation as anyone else does. TMZ FTW!
TMZ employs stalkerazzi to create problems with celebrities and manufacture news. I wouldn’t be surprised if the papz obstructed ambulences to the residence. I guess that is called the new media these days – hiring cheap labor to stalk celebrities. The one good thing now is that TMZ has the credibility to buy back old media Time Magazine. The AOL-TW merger was great, just way over-valued and now media is De-Valued, congrats TMZ!
Agree… and TMZ’s statement wasn’t official, they were guessing. Sometimes they’re right, sometimes they’re not.
Couldn’t disagree more strongly. Once again–the facts get in the way of your story.
Sad.
Harvey Levin at TMZ is trash and scum. Is new media mean that everyone is being monitored on CCTV and your every step is reported on twitter or facebook, even if voluntarily? Do we really want hospital workers leaking illness and death to scummy papperazzi people? MJ could have alredy died or been in a coma, but I would have hate to have found out by TMZ if I was his family.
Does new media mean there is no common decency? Does it mean that gossip on twitter runs and ruins our lives? New media is penniless and runs on gossip to earn money from the eroding pie that we call news. Will anyone ever pay for a subscription to Twitter like the newspapers or cable news, probably not.
All the media here in the uk, from what I’ve seen, have been attributing the story correctly, with most of the headlines mentioning TMZ breaking the news.
I have noticed that as well, as soon as the story began filtering through here in the UK both LA Times and TMZ were the attributed sources. On Sky News they spoke about blogs, Twitter and ‘other sources’ and even Uri Geller added his version of events!
Not sure what the premise of this article is supposed to be. You admit that TMZ may have been simply guessing in announcing Jackson’s death, then criticize the ‘mainstream media’ for speculating the exact same thing. Nothing in this article supports the contention that Twitter and blogs spread ‘the facts’ more effectively, though clearly they spread speculation and rumor more effectively.
Agreed, not really sure what this article was about… If the AP or LA Times had never confirmed the story at some point people would have dismissed it as rumor.
You seem to confuse your point a little. What exactly are you trying to say in your article? What is meant by “heavy lifting” is that you risk your reputation on the story. If the LAT kept publishing stories that turned out to be un-true, they would be relegated to the PerezHilton heap. And that is something Twitter et al. will never be able to do in their current incarnation. Simply because they do not have the track record the LAT has. Media “weight” has everything to do with previous performance of accuracy, not speed of message. That’s why the Economist is still relevant today although they publish on a weekly schedule.
I usually like Robin’s coverage…but in the above one, I get that u r frustrated but what are u exactly telling us here….how is the issue of trusting twitter and blogs besides the point in this case ? I do agree that the Chicago Tribune bit on doing the ‘heavy lifting’ is pretty lame and your overall point that old media is really getting old. Wish they had died instead of MJ and Farrah Fawcett.
I hate to be a grammar nazi but it is “ceased to be” not “seized to be.”
Fixed, thanks.
Who knew that social media would make the “media monopoly/consolidation” issue a moot point. Let any media company own as many outlets as they want – they’re still going to get their asses kicked by “a bunch of kids on Twitter.”
While I agree with the point of this article, there is a fundamental point here that needs clarifying.
It is critical to understand whether TMZ anticipated the death, or whether they published based on some type of evidence they received and nobody else did.
If they had no evidence (just a likelihood), then they guessed and got lucky. But they could have be wrong! Because they weren’t, they are getting many plaudits today for being the first to the news. Hence, we are encouraging sites like this to anticipate news happening – in effect to create their own news. This goes to the heart of the trust issue.
When we compare sites like TMZ with newspapers with 100 years of heritage, it shows that if anything, the sites have to be more careful with their sources so that we can start to trust their reporting.
It is critical for this issue to understand if TMZ published first because they had some type of evidence, or because they took a punt and are now getting plaudits for gambling that the story was going to happen.
Might I point out that the vaunted Twitter also killed Jeff Goldblum and Harrison Ford yesterday. So reliability of Twitter for news is questionable.
TMZ is essentially the modern tabloid rag. They can publish anything because they have little reputation to ruin. Get it wrong, oh well. Old media with sources and fact checking, are a little slower but have used that to build audience trust. All are necessary in the information ecosystem.
Do we see a mea culpa from TC the next time TMZ posts breaking news that turns out completely wrong?
Guess what, old media are not only slower but also get it wrong at times. Bottom line is that they’re treating this case with an absurd amount of self-righteousness.
They do get it wrong sometimes. But I’d bet they’re an order of magnitude more accurate than the blogs. And one of the key reasons that they’re more accurate is that they’re slower.
As they say in engineering, “Good, fast, cheap: pick any two.” The same applies to your news.
+1.
To me, the role Twitter played here is just a bunch of people crowding around a big screen TV waiting for the next update to the news story. Point is, Twitter would be nothing without the “old media.”
Yeah, in fact this situation shows just how useless twitter information truely is. Twitter is constantly touted as a real time source for news worthy events, but in actuality twitter is just a high speed rumor mill, completly void of useful information. The more interested the followers become in the twitter stream, the more useless the information becomes.
This is a bit ridiculous robin. Old media rarely makes mistakes on the magnitude of someones death – the bbc, NY Times, etc. etc. they make small errors from time to time sure, but nothing serious. (discounting tabloids) Twitter is rumour mongering and mob mentality, and all over the internet every day there are massive rumours / lies and god knows what.
Whilst i read blogs (such as TC) i always do with a healthy degree of scepticism. Call me old school, but i love the fact that there are old dogs at newspapers still checking sources, still with serious codes of ethics and old school attitudes. And still, when it comes to the REAL stories, the serious ones, such as things on the level of watergate, election fraud etc. etc. it’ll still be, and probably always be, the old school media organisations breaking them. A blog may find out by coincidence (or guess) about a celebrity death, but thet’s see them try and break something major. Maybe they will one day, but i’ve never seen it yet, and without the infastructure those stories require for support, i doubt i ever will do.
I imagine these mainstream outlets could give the bloggers and what not more credit(at least after the fact). It’s understandable that they would not want to risk pissing off an entire world of fans by reporting in gross error that the King of Pop is dead(unconfirmed at the time).
Sometimes though, we think that EVERYBODY else is a twitter hound, facebook fanatic or web freak…tonnes of folks didnt know about this until hearing it on the radio or seeing “Breaking News” on tv.
I got the breaking news alert on my bberry on the way home, but didn’t check until i got home, which was after I saw it on tv anyway.
Sometimes folks are far more concerned about being FIRST than being credible(“we can always verify later…right?”). So you can break the news with all your “friends” and assume some higher level of worth within the social hierachy.
I love my blogs and social nets, but sometimes the shoot first ask ??? later mentality is overbearing.
Very nice video, first time ever a tag cloud felt useful for me
What is your problem with “old media?” how many “updates” correcting information have been posted on TechCrunch over the years? That same rate of inaccuracy is rarely afforded to so called “old media” You pick an instance to make your point, well done. It’s interesting you make no mention in your piece on Jeff Goldblum or the countless times you’ve actually got it wrong while trying to get it first. Heavy lifting? While you sit at the comfort of your desk so called “old media” has reporters risking their lives on the ground in Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and closer to our border, Mexico covering some of the most bloody drug related conflicts we’ve ever seen. That’s just a few, the list is endless. This tiresome bashing of “old media” is played out. If you did real investigative reporting and blogged about it, perhaps I’d see your point. There’s no question publications have made countless errors regarding the direction of their business, they sold their own hides, that’s their problem, but don’t sit there and discount what they do. What a load of BS.
“…you can replace TMZ with just about any news outlet out there, including the old big ones, who are rapidly becoming far less big and relevant.”
You can have TMZ. Of the 30 stories they post in a day I generally care about, well, none. So they scooped everyone on MJ. An hour later, when I got to my computer, I wanted facts, videos, quotes, etc. Old media had it. TMZ was still pushing the same headline. Today, “old” media is talking to big names, doing live shots… TMZ’s got nothing. So, as you sit on TMZ.com clicking refresh, I’m reading some of the most in-depth articles on old media sites.
Oh, it was the Twitterverse that broke the “news” that Jeff Goldblum died. Even though he didn’t. In your world CBS would wake Katie Couric to cover the rumor.
Go to journalism school and you’ll get it.
BTW, before you click ‘Publish’ next time, do the old school, old media thing: grammar and spell check.
I’m confused. You want the old media to credit Twitter with…what? Repeating the TMZ story? Twitter certainly did a good job of that – and fell down on other things – but the stories that you’re critiquing are about who actually reported and confirmed the news, and Twitter didn’t do either of those things.
I didn’t say Twitter should have been credited as the source of news though, because it wasn’t.
It would be a sad world where we’d get the news from TMZ and Twitter…
I agree, but it’d be equally sad if we’d have to rely on a handful of gatekeepers rather than use technology and citizen journalism to complement the traditional media industry.
Ha! Citizen Journalism my ***.. More like Citizen Eye Witnessing. Honey, I’m young and all over today’s technology but a bunch of nonsense floating through the twitterverse is not journalism.. They may be attributing information by bearing witness and capturing crappy videos and photography but it certainly isn’t journalism by any means. I find it odd that you call out old media “beating it’s chest” yet that’s exactly what you’re doing by even having this article plus the 20 other articles you’ll post today about being relevant. Talk to me in 50 years and if you’re still around, then you can have the credit that other news organizations have managed to obtain.
I may be old fashioned but I still prefer my news to be accurate and credible rather than just first and fast…
Here is how it unfolded for me:
1. Friend calls on my cell phone to tell me about it
2. I check twitter first and see messages “ZOMG MJ dead?”, “MJ in coma or dead?”, “OMG OMG I loved MJ” and similar bits adding zero information
3. Checks TMZ which reports his death. CNN still not sure.
4. Twitter: “ZOMG MJ dead?”, “MJ in coma or dead?”, “OMG OMG I loved MJ”
5. CNN says that LA times and other AP outlets are confirming his death (This is the point where I know MJ has died)
6. Twitter: “ZOMG MJ dead?”, “MJ in coma or dead?”, “OMG OMG I loved MJ”
I’ve never understood the accomplishment in being “first to break the news”….when the difference between first and second is measured in minutes or hours.
Maybe if you predict something weeks or months out before anyone else is willing to admit it or report on it, then you’ve got some credit for putting the facts together – but come on…
probably the most relevant point on here Karl. Also people overlook the quality of details. In 140 characters, there is no way you convey what can be written with a full news article, even if it is released hours after the incident. I guarantee, people are reading more today at the standard news outlets for details, and not twitter.
Trying to push the importance of real time streams is getting a little ridiculous.
Back in the time when there were multiple newspapers publishing multiple editions in the same city, daily, papers wanted to have news first to sell more papers.
Indeed, many “breaking” stories today are exactly of this MJ type.
Sure, the scope of his existence merited immediate coverage, but what is the real influence of all this? How important is Michael Jackson or any celebrity in the grand scheme of things?
This is one of those cases where the rumor mill will always be faster than the press.
Conversely, Woodward and Bernstein “broke” Watergate through meticulous, years-long research and reporting.
Getting it right, at least the way I do the job, is vastly more important to getting it first.
The very best get it right and first.
Robin’s right, old media represented in the article she quotes is being self-righteous – the point of her article. What’s the “heavy lifting” they are referring to, sourcing their statements? Does the Trib think old media are the only ones with reliable sources? Give me a break ….
TMZ’s credibility meter goes up with this story. If they are right again the next time then it goes up more. The question is does it go down when they get it wrong? Do we accept from ‘gossip’ sites a 100 batting average? 200? I agree that a critical question is whether they had a source or simply took an educated guess. If they took a guess then over time they’ll get it wrong more often and we’ll stop paying attention. If they are managing sources more efficiently then they’ll become big media in the future… sources drive news.
The only reason you’re saying that old media’s self-righteousness is absurd is because TMZ guessed right (at least, it seems most likely that it was a guess). If they had been wrong (which wasn’t an unlikely scenario) then I’m guessing TC would have remained quiet. Certainly, you wouldn’t have posted an article admonishing TMZ for rampant speculation. TMZ is a tabloid. Entertaining to be sure, but it has a long way to go before it becomes a trusted news source.
Which is not to say that sites like these don’t have their uses. During the Jesusita Fire in Santa Barbara a few months ago, twitter was the place for up to date information. It was much quicker and more reliable than old standards. Although, it’s worth noting that many of the tweeters who emerged as the go-to sources were known to be the people that old media would use as primary sources anyway, thereby doing away with the question of credibility.
Old media certainly has to evolve to remain in business (if not relevant), but I’ll still take their methods of research and fact-checking, fallible and slow though they occasionally are, over a tabloid website with questionable reliability and nothing to lose.
Except you don’t know it was a guess.
Right, but you also don’t know it wasn’t. In fact, you thought it was likely enough to acknowledge the possibility in your article. I know you say it doesn’t matter now, because they turned out to be right, but it really does. Certainly from an ethical standpoint it matters, but from a practical standpoint as well. Would you have us get our news from deathlist.net?
I was checking for urls around Jackos death, and it seams like all are taken! Here one that selects all Twitter tweets in tribute to Jackos death. http://www.in-memory-of-michael-jackson.com
Crazy! So no need to search in Twitter anymore…
To be fair, old media does seem to have problems crediting websites, even when the websites have sourced and verified their information. I think you just picked a bad example to make your point. If TMZ had scooped the story with anything resembling a reliable source, then I would be with you in your incredulity, but why would you ever credit someone’s guess? Especially when you had to go out and find credible verification before you were allowed to publish.
Ha.
AP: http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_MICHAEL_JACKSON?SITE=MALOW&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT
NY Times: http://artsbeat.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/06/25/michael-jackson-hospitalized/?ref=music
And trust me, both were well aware that TMZ had been claiming Jackson’s death (with confirmed sources) for over half an hour when the reporting started.
And both of those articles credit more reliable sources than TMZ.com, which the author of the article had to go out and question. (Yes, I’m saying that the AP’s anonymous source is more credible than TMZ.com’s anonymous source. Even if they are, in fact, the same person.) It’s possible that I don’t have a clear understanding of the appropriate times to give credit, but it seems to me that you do it when the idea for the story came from someone else, or when you’re using someone else as a direct source. Clearly, neither of those articles use TMZ as a direct source (as evidenced by the fact that they credit other sources), so that leaves the other possibility. Do you really think it likely that the AP or the New York Times found out about Michael Jackson from TMZ and not from an affiliate or the LA Times or their own reporter or source in LA?
I was flicking through Sky News, BBC News, CNN and Fox News all evening with Twitter alongside.
Twitter didn’t really beat Sky by more than a few minutes on TMZ and reported the LAT confimration at around the smae time as Twitter lit up on that one. BBC was probably ten minutes off but CNN and FOX were at least twenty minutes behind both UK networks.
I salute Robin Wauters and TechCrunch crow for attributing rightly the stories they get. Back to the case, People only believed the story when CNN confirmed it. When I 1st told my american friend about TMZ she told me this site is not very credible. But came back and said he died
when she saw it on CNN! however by time people will start taking bloggers as the real credible source like CNN, I read mostly blogs and I believe any tech story broken by TC. To note that a blog like any media has to build its credibility.
Did anyone notice that Michael Jackson was pronounced dead at 2:26 p.m. and TMZ posted its story at 2:20 p.m. (meaning it wrote it up a few minutes earlier)…. yes, the guessed, and guessed right.
Bottom line is that everyone was waiting to see when the Times or someone credible reported the news. Those sites were refreshed constantly and then once they confirmed the news, the story received credibility. TMZ got lucky — they have photographers stalking celebrities so they’re going to see things from time to time. In this case, they happened to be with Michael Jackson and followed him to the hospital. Big deal.
You may not be able to go by those times. When posting online the post is usually timestamped with the local server time, and a server can be in any timezone. Also, time of being pronounced dead may be official time, but the news may have broke earlier; he may have been dead before paramedics even got there – especially with something like cardiac arrest.
TMZ is an ENTERTAINMENT source. Twitter users are ALL OVER while the LA Times or other mainstream media source has reporters here and there.
What if someone called the LA Times and told them. Would that informer be ‘new media’?
For me, the real confirmation of TMZ’s report was how the mainstream media sites started redrawing their homepages into Michael Jackson tributes before the official LA Times confirmation. Someone knew, or guessed, or wanted to be ready and they were all waiting for a report from someone other than TMZ to announce it.
To recap:
When Michael Jackson died, Twitter crashed and all other news media sites stayed up.
TechCrunch then claimed Twitter saved the universe again.
Thanks!
bad post missing some logic links
It’s been said enough, so need to comment further other than to say I agree with the comments defending big media as it relates to this post.
If Jackson’s death from a media perspective showed us anything, it’s that new media has effectively surpassed old media in terms of breaking the news.
CNN didn’t “call it” until 7 p.m. Eastern Time. By that point, it was a foregone conclusion.
Who cares about who breaks it? I want the most accurate, credible, informative news story, not a headline generate by a room full of rumor-mongering sheeple. Be careful what you wish for, the old media might die, and then it is open season on unsubstantiated news…won’t that be fun?