TMZ runs a victory lap
The mainstream media is grudgingly acknowledging today that they were bested by a gossip blog in breaking the news that Michael Jackson had died.
TV misses out as gossip website TMZ reports Michael Jackson’s death first
On a day already consumed by the death of ’70s TV star Farrah Fawcett, Jackson’s death sent TMZ into overdrive. Yet the tabloid sensibilities of the site, which is owned and operated by divisions of Time Warner, and its accompanying syndicated TV show apparently made rivals queasy. Many outlets around the world instead credited the news to the Los Angeles Times, which bannered Jackson’s death on its website at 2:51 p.m.
By 4 p.m., a huge crowd had gathered outside UCLA Medical Center, and celebrities and fans alike were submitting so many messages mourning his death on Twitter that the service intermittently crashed. CNN was still relying on “reports” from other media and telling viewers it could not independently verify the death. Only when the coroner’s office confirmed Jackson’s death did CNN relay it as outright fact to viewers, at 4:25 p.m.
What was interesting was that when TMZ first started reporting it, Twitter was all a buzz and that is how i found out about it. Though many people were unsure whether to trust the source.
Mainstream media’s problems run far deeper than getting “beat” on the Michael Jackson story by a celebrity gossip site.
Who cares who got this story first? I’m sorry about Michael Jackson’s death, but is this the kind of fare that serious journalism outlets should be trying to scoop? I think not.
It was MSM’s obsession with such stories in the past, before the primacy of the Web — the deaths of Elvis, and Princess Diana and the O.J. fiasco — that contributed to its loss of credibility and growing irrelevancy.
Instead of using its resources and news judgment to question governmental authority, decisions on going to war, etc., so many of our leading news organizations have shamelessly thrown themselves on the altar of pop culture.
And so it went again last night, trailing TMZ’s lead. How fitting.