PREDICTIONS of the death of the "dead tree press" are greatly exaggerated in my view. But last night’s big story certainly highlighted the weaknesses of daily newspapers compared with the immediacy of both the internet and 24-hour rolling news coverage.
Sky started off reporting news from the showbiz gossip site, TMZ, that Michael Jackson had suffered a cardiac arrest and had been taken to hospital in Los Angeles. Fifty minutes later, the same site announced the singer’s death, but it was only when the Los Angeles Times announced the same headline that the mainstream media felt confident enough to report it as fact.
And this morning, inevitably, most of the newspapers (their earlier editions at least) were exposed as having been left behind the curve, reporting the latest celebrity death as Farrah Fawcett’s. There was no avoiding this, given the time the news broke last night, but I guess it could serve as another small nail in the coffin of the print media, with the internet and broadcast media reasserting their immediacy which, when it comes to this type of news, is everything.
Personally, I felt sadder than I expected when I heard the news. I used to have a copy of Thriller in my younger days, but it was on tape and was lost long ago. So last night I downloaded the 25th anniversary edition of the alum from iTunes. It includes not only the original album but various remixes as well as the iconic videos for Billie Jean, Beat It and, of course, the 15-minutes Jon Landis-directed Thriller.
Jackson will remain a controversial figure, even in death, but Thriller and a lot of his subsequent work confirmed him as a genius, albeit a very flawed and, ultimately, tragic one.
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Friday 26 June 2009 at 1:16 pm
Anyway, Glenn Miller’s still missing then.
Friday 26 June 2009 at 1:25 pm
I’ve often wondered why the national papers don’t have regional presses to finalise the front pages at, say, 4am
That way they could have immediate coverage of any overnight news without having to recall and pulp existing copy.
Having said that, when the Kindle finally comes out in the UK (with downloadable newsprint) it’ll probably kill off a few of the smaller papers and force the bigger names to go to a digital-only format…
Friday 26 June 2009 at 1:36 pm
Even worse was The Times’, Indy’s & Mirror’s reporting of alleged Tweets by David Milliband.
They actually thought the Foreign Sec would twitter about MJ in the middle of the night, and had previously said “”Another idea from Eyebrows, sack all the drivers and use McDonalds staff instead. He reckons Reagan would have done it. No Al!”. Surely their eyebrows should have been raised at that point?
Friday 26 June 2009 at 1:37 pm
The beeb left it until about 1230 before they ‘called it’ officially. Even though they had been running vox obit for at least an hour. A difficult situation to be in. But what papers do best (if they want to try) is collect all the info together in one place with more authoritative comment and – hopefully – better pictures than Twitter.
Friday 26 June 2009 at 2:06 pm
Born in 1958, when the Conservative were in power. Died in 2009, when Labour were in power. Coincidence?
I jest of course. A sad loss to the world, and I hope he is remembered for his groundbreaking music rather than his many personal problems of recent years.
Friday 26 June 2009 at 4:10 pm
o/t but can’t help but laugh :
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/newsnight/michaelcrick/2009/06/gibson_may_stand_as_independen.html
If he does then Labour can kiss goodbye to another seat…
Friday 26 June 2009 at 6:59 pm
Personal problems.
Is that what we’re calling them?
Monday 29 June 2009 at 5:09 pm
[...] Tom Harris MP writes of the challenges for the print media in covering Michael Jackson’s death. [...]
Wednesday 15 July 2009 at 11:29 pm
[...] Tom Harris brought up a point that interests me. The traditional media was clearly struggling to keep up with the story as it unfolded. And it’s not just the fact that the newspapers were already out of date by the time they hit news stands. I wonder how an outlet like TMZ can be so far ahead of traditional media companies. A sign of the times. [...]
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