With Michael Jackson Coverage, Old Media Shows Its Age
The news cycle around Michael Jackson’s death has essentially petered out, allowing us to now examine what we’ve seen. Perhaps most interesting regarding the coverage was that most of the information — in terms of being first and being correct — came not from mainstream media but from blogs, gossip pages, and fan sites.
What does this mean for the mainstream media?
On the day Jackson died, I went looking in the mainstream media for confirmation about what everybody else already knew — and I found none. Fox, CNN, and MSNBC were all running the TMZ footage of the ambulance backing out of the Jackson property, and repeating information from other gossip sites. On newspaper sites, including the New York Times, it was as if the event hadn’t happened yet. For at least the first two days, the original sources for the hottest story on the planet were not mainstream.
After the story had slowed somewhat, the Los Angeles Times posted a strikingly revealing question on the topic:
“How would we have reacted if TMZ had been wrong about Michael Jackson’s death?”
The question, and the whole article, indirectly suggested that TMZ did not take enough care getting the facts right before releasing their information. Trouble was, TMZ did in fact get the story right — hours before the Times ran with anything at all. So the Times offered a subtly leading “what if” game, bearing the charge of lack of due diligence.
To answer their question? In the event TMZ screwed up, the criticism would likely be much harsher than if the Times had.
Plus the online blogs had something more than the Jackson death on their sites. I couldn’t watch TV without running into a Michael Jackson special, but thank God I was able to get away from that bu!!$#it online.
Remember back to the hysterical reporting by the networks and major papers in the wake of Katrina–10,000 dead, bodies piled up in the Superdome’s refrigerators, snipers shooting at rescue choppers. Each of these headlines were breathlessly reported as facts by the major networks anchors and “reporters” when they were nothing more than rumors. Yet none of them were criticized for getting so much of the story wrong. The legacy media’s actions when they’re wrong is to conveniently delete the piece from their archives.
Like #1 Smartgrunt, I went online to get AWAY from the Michael Jackson “reporting” — the MSM coverage of Jacson’s death shoved far more important things off the news. How many Americans were killed and injured in Iraq and Afghanistan during that time? What was going on with the cap and trade bill during that time? How was the economy doing?
All of this was ignored so that the MSM could breathlessly report on the sordid details of a troubled (and troubling) man who sang a few tunes. The MSM did evverything it could to whip up the populist frenzy about his death. I clearly remember reporting on FOX about the “crowd” at Jackson’s estate — what the camera clearly showed was five teenagers and a horde of media, identifiable by their cameras and microphones. The MSM reported on the story ad nauseum because it was easy and titillating, and then self-generated the subsequent stories about the crowd hysteria.
“With Jackson’s death, and other recent stories, the mainstream media has proved itself irrelevant in breaking news and in follow-up.”
This sentence, and most of this story, really doesn’t make sense. I agree that the MSM is becoming increasingly marginal, but the coverage of Michael Jackson’s death doesn’t prove anything. First, anyone who waited for confirmation was doing the right thing. It is not fair to criticize someone for doing the right thing just because they don’t do it enough. The drive to get the story first is really an antiquated notion that goes back 100 years when newspapers were the only source of news. Back then, if you got a story first, there was a chance that you could sell more papers because you would have a story your rival wouldn’t have until much later.
Why does it matter how quickly his death was reported? His family needed to know as soon as possible. For the rest of the world, finding one, three, or five hours after it happened made absolutely no difference at all.
To add fuel to the fire, wasn’t it the National Enquirer that revealed John Edwards’ affair?
..we live in the land of the terminally stuipid. Any of you rememebe when the Kennedy kid augwered his plane into Block Island Sound some years ago and we were treated to the constant drone of the talking heads and breathless bouffant-and-lip-gloss info-babes (and dudes) prattling ceaselessy over that incessant picture of the Naval vessel at anchor off Mass with the helicopter hovering nearby..
..for the ENTIRE weekend?
Un-freaking-believable.
WRT to Jackson, they shoulda just planted the little perv and moved on.
Why did anyone cover Jackson’s death? It wasn’t significant,especially compared to other things going on in the world.
The former mainstream media showed itself to be more and more former. It reported Jackson’s death as significant,instead of as another rock ‘n’ roll wacko bits the dust.
The MSM will only know they are irrelevant when their programs are canceled; otherwise, they will continue to live in denial.
I too got online to get away from the Michael Jackson death hysteria from the MSM. I just could not believe Fox News devoted so much shallow news coverage to Michael Jackson. The media has turned into nothing more than cotton candy, lacking any real protein or sustenance.
MSM is a joke. Check out CNN’s home page. This slobbering sorry excuse for a news agency even has a special site for M Jackson. Good Grief, Is it any wonder that Cable News and News Papers across the country are skating on the thin ice of economical disaster.
Of itself perhaps not. But as a part of a pattern, it seems to me we have something different.
Well, yes, but as I pointed out at the time, the paper is owned by Hillary Clinton loyalists. Remember, that came up in the primary, when Clinton still had a shot at defeating Obama. Not quite the same scenario.
Of itself, perhaps not. But if it took this long to get facts on a simple story like this.. where else is the MSM letting us down?
Let’s be clear about this. TMZ had such confirmation, sufficient to get the story both fast and correctly. They, apparently, were out there doing news gathering, whereas the MSM, clearly, was not. Doesn’t that raise at least a little concern as to their fact collection/reporting ability on matters of greater import?
Nothlander@#2, I’m going to run stuff by you from now on.
I wish I’d added that point to my original document.
To the rest of you: What Northlander said.
I’m sure we can come up with added examples of such. As I said, the Jackson thing is part of a pattern.
In fact, tell you what… Since I wrote this one, I don’t feel shy about playing ring leader. Let’s hear *your* examples, folks.
Personal note–we were fortunate to have a direct lightning strike fry our television about 3 days before Jackson died, so we were spared both the coverage and the effort required to avoid it.
The only reason we’re shopping for a replacement is that football starts next month.
The one story that *did* turn out to be totally fake, concocted and full of lies was the one about Jackson’s body with its peach fuzz hair, wigs, surgical mutilation, and multitude of purple injection marks was printed by … dinosaur media. A newspaper. The Sun out of UK.
I don’t see how the LA Times can denigrate either blogs or TMZ when the most patently fake story was put out there by a fellow newspaper.
I’ve always felt the MSM played a bigger role in the 2000 election fiasco than they get blamed for. Each network wants to be the first to project a winner and call a state for a certain candidate. In the case of FL, one of the things they failed to take into account that night is the western Panhandle being in a different time zone, meaning the polls close an hour later in Pensacola than in Palm Beach. The networks were calling the state for Gore before the Panhandle–a predominantly Republican stronghold had closed its polls.
And they’ve never apologized; instead they keep doing this every election.
When Mike Jackson was present on any news, Fox or CNN, I just changed the channel. If there wasn’t anything on TV I would go online or read a book. What was most disturbing (and again Fox and CNN were *both* complicit) was that the disturbing life of Mike Jackson became a non-issue. It was the case of the Media, left and right for some reason, trying to make him into the next Elvis. To top the cake was the self-serving leftist trying to make him into the next MLK Jr. Icon of race relations. That is ironic because you could tell he was trying every way he could to physically at least become white. Pathetic!
14. Karen writes:
“The networks were calling the state for Gore before the Panhandle–a predominantly Republican stronghold had closed its polls. And they’ve never apologized; instead they keep doing this every election.”
..they did that with Reagan/Carter too long ago and they pissed off a lot of California Dems because that dumb little peanut farmer through in the towell at 5:01 PM PST (8:01 PM PDT), costing all the CA voters to stay home.
I was annoyed because I wanted to see that Jerk from Georgia get beat like a drum and I wanted the agony to stretch out over the entire evening.
You can bet your sweet little buns that they’ll keep their mouths shut in 2012 — even if it’s a landslide for the Republican challenger — because they will want their darling little Boy King to have every chance he can possibly get.
Frankly, I hope he gets driven down so far in the polls that he weirds out and takes a hike before he’s up for re-election. Would not put it past the Clown-in chief to cut and run when his administration unravels.
Eric,
Thanks for the kind words but when it comes to the MSM it’s not hard to find examples of malfeasance that’s leading them to irrelevance.
Exactly the point, Northlander. Exactly the point.
I don’t intend to demean anyone’s observation or example, but it is in fact alarmingly easy to find such examples, to the point where the whole thing is nigh axiomatic.
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I agree that the idea of President Zero departing office before his time is up is very appealing. However, the downside to such a scenario is that the idiot Joe “Hey you in that wheelchair, stand up!” Biden would ascend to the Presidency. That would truly be a disaster of monumental proportions. Biden can’t put three words together without making a fool of himself. Isn’t it interesting that for eight years, the MSM never missed a chance to point out the gaffes and misspeaks by GWB. Biden provides them an endless supply of such tidbits, but we hear nothing from the talking-head morons in the media.