Friday June 26, 2009

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On Jackson death, old media “did the heavy lifting”: This is an actual paragraph from a Chicago Tribune story about how the news of Michael Jackson’s death spread: “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.” Um, I realize that TMZ isn’t the most credible news source, but it was first and right on this one. And I realize that some folks on Twitter thought Jeff Goldblum had died, which he hadn’t, but many people found out about Jackson’s death through a Tweet, not by visiting their newspaper’s website. Dismissing the value of speed and social connections is dangerous. News is not an end state, it’s a distributed conversation. You can do all “the heavy lifting” you want, but if it’s not part of the real-time conversation, it’s increasingly irrelevant.

On Jackson death, old media “did the heavy lifting”: This is an actual paragraph from a Chicago Tribune story about how the news of Michael Jackson’s death spread:

“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.”
Um, I realize that TMZ isn’t the most credible news source, but it was first and right on this one. And I realize that some folks on Twitter thought Jeff Goldblum had died, which he hadn’t, but many people found out about Jackson’s death through a Tweet, not by visiting their newspaper’s website. Dismissing the value of speed and social connections is dangerous. News is not an end state, it’s a distributed conversation. You can do all “the heavy lifting” you want, but if it’s not part of the real-time conversation, it’s increasingly irrelevant.
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