Michael Jackson: Anatomy of a News Story"This is it. I just want to say these will be my final show performances in London. This is it, when I say this is it, this is it." Let's say you're a mid-level hack for an entertainment magazine. Let's say it's your lunch break, but you're still sitting at your desk. Now let's say some concerned citizen calls you at your desk. "Michael Jackson got a heart attack and he's been taken to hospital," they say, and hang up. You look around. Everyone's gone to lunch. No one's around. To tell the truth, the only reason you're around is because you're stuck on this Bejewelled thing and you're not going to stop until you break 125,000 points. What do you do? A. Wait until you get some sort of confirmation of the story from anyone. Anyone at all. or B. JACKSON DEAD AT 50! MILLIONS FLEE THEIR HOMES! How it happenedI'm going to be completely honest here and say that I don't really care what happened to Michael Jackson, or how. I don't really care about his impact on pop music, or his coloured history of underage friendships and other oddness. He wrote a few good pop tunes, now he's dead, and I'm sure it's very sad for his family. The end. This page is not, therefore, about Michael Jackson. It's not an homage to his greatness, or an indictment of his more bizarre tendencies. This is a story about stories. A meta-story, if you like, an examination of how the press reacts when some really large shit hits a relatively small fan. I started following this metastory around three o'clock Pacific Standard (Los Angeles) Time, when a friend of mine called Dan messaged me and told me that Michael Jackson was dead. I immediately Googled, and looked around for some sources. I noticed everyone was being cagey, and no one was saying anything. So it struck me that maybe he wasn't dead at all, and the online media were getting it all wrong. So I started taking screencaps to document the lulz. I've never run around the internet so fast in my life. Although he turned out to be dead all along, I'm hoping the lulz are in some way maintained. Because I am resolved to do this piece anyway. Stay with me, OK?
Even though these were the first stirrings, TMZ doesn't fuck around. However, as you can see, their source is "a source", which just isn't good enough for me, or anyone who likes to think of the news as things that actually happened.
Eight minutes after the TMZ site updated, Wood 8 in Grand Rapids Michigan was on the case. Although the problem here would prove to be symptomatic of a larger issue - at what point can you legitimately say that you have a story? TMZ is not a news outlet; it's a light-hearted entertainment website. Ideally we should wait until we have confirmation from someone like CNN, or if we're being very grand, the BBC. However, even the local media outlets of Michigan were reporting not that he had died but that TMZ said he died, which you'll agree is not the same thing at all.
A quick search of CNN revealed this curiously-worded piece. Note that Jackson is not dead, like he was in the TMZ piece. The good news is that they have a named source: fire chief Steve Ruda. However, despite the tacit admission that they do not know anything about his condition, the last two sentences refer to him in the past tense, in terms very much akin to those of an obituary.
A much more carefully-worded piece from the ever-reliable msnbc.com, albeit their entertainment division. By now the Los Angeles Times (which wouldn't, in my opinion, publish anything anywhere unless they knew it was solid) has been invoked, and also some words from Jackson's father in Las Vegas. Jackson is now "in a coma", which is better than being dead, no matter what way you look at it. Also note, in an amusing understatment, how msnbc.com says that TMZ said he "may have suffered cardiac arrest" when in fact what TMZ said was: "Michael Jackson dies".
You'd think abc.com's news team, as one of the most prominent in the country, would have it together. But no - we're getting "multiple reports", unnamed of course, and only one named source, the Los Angeles Times, presumably the same source as informed msnbc.com. Disappointing.
About a half hour after the TMZ story started to get picked up, The Escapist decided to say something sensible. Although TMZ turned out to be correct, any sensible person should have taken it "with a grain of salt." So well done those people - correctly sourced information, correctly judged as probably bullshit.
Later than expected, some traditional lazy tabloid journalism from ET Online. A photo of a guy who looks like Michael Jackson being carted into the back of what looks like an ambulance, all under "IS HE DEAD?" You can almost smell the class.
Really? And how do they know: "various news sources". I see. Well, thanks for that. The hunt for actual news continues.
The much-maligned Fox News actually getting it right. The give every source available, what each one said, and concluded that his condition "wasn't immediately clear". I never thought I'd ever be saying this, but well done Fox News.
Meanwhile, back on TMZ, we're getting to the heart of the matter: the reaction of what passes for celebrities. I really need to know what Kim Kardashian thinks of a story that hasn't been confirmed yet.
The time is 3:15 Pacific Standard (Los Angeles) Time. For the first time, I suspect that the story might be true. However, it's clearly just some sort of ancilliary blog and not the main newspaper, so I'm still not accepting it.
A minute afterwards, the New York Daily News reports that he's dead - but look at their sources! It's the same people - the Los Angeles Times and TMZ! Aargh!
I'm not picking on Canyon News: it's just one of many who did this - reporting a story with just the TMZ source. That's not news, people! Gosh.
Good old Brisbane Times. Not only refer to TMZ as your only source, but let TMZ take all the shit for what might be a bogus story. Good thinking. In case it's not clear, that's a little video on their website of the TMZ website...
It is now 3:35 PST. Back to E! Online, and Fire Chief Steve Rude optimistically referring to Michael Jackson as "a person". Also, respect to his father, who is probably one of the very few people who would have a good reason to overreact to this news.
It is 4:01 PST, and Sky News (a legitimate news source) has just come right out and said it. Lingering concerns about the Los Angeles Times source are melting away.
Oh snap! The BBC is on board. I now believe that Michael Jackson is actually dead.
Do they mean "The past legal problems of Michael Jackson" or "Michael Jackson is past legal problems (because he is dead)"? We may never know.
At 4:19 PT, a report finally appeared on the AP wires, but seriously, what the hell is this "a person with knowledge of the situation" bullshit? I trust the AP as a solid source for news, but reporting sources in this manner just looks louche, which is presumably the opposite of what they're looking for.
The Los Angeles Times finally feels secure enough, at 4:26 PST, to throw it onto the front page of their main site. It's game over. More Jackson-related Bullshit
Never a truer word was spoken, Liz Barrett of the Examiner (sadly not the Irish newspaper - a guy can dream, dammit). If only they scrambled a little harder.
What the hell happened here? This started show up on Google searches of "Michael Jackson" at around 4:15 PST - as you can see, although the article was written on June 13, 1995, it was "Posted Thu, Jun. 25, 2009". Did they just pick a random Jackson-related article from the archives or something? Do they have no copy editors? In any case, the answer is "very much not".
Well at least there's some good news - there are still some tickets available for the London concert.
Really Calgary Herald? Really? Because I think you'll find that it is.
This looks interesting - check out the sidebar. People are more likely to write "Cardiac Arrest", "CPR" or "Hospital" than "#michaeljackson" when talking about Michael Jackson. How about that? Also, Warren Ellis makes a good point.
Yes, but what I really want to know is: How will this affect Wikipedia?
"Michael Jackson's dead!" |
