RIP Michael Jackson

I took this photo at the Michael Jackson auction exhibition in Beverley Hills in April 2009. Have been a huge admirer for years through all his troubles. Only saw him perform live once, in Leeds a few years ago, and had tickets to see him at the 02 in London. Very very sad that he has passed away. He was an inspiration and an original.

Comments

[Sue Thomas]

Yes, I was watching Twitterfal streaming live, and CNN on the TV. The first I heard of it was via an LATimes tweet as I was sitting at my desk, so I went to the LA Times website. Once I knew it was real, I switched the TV to CNN and stuck with that while I continued to watch Twitterfall and kept returning to the LA Times site to refresh it. After a while there was an update on the site to say he was in a coma, then another to say he was dead. I then cross-checked with the BBC and Reuters and via Google search but nobody else was saying he was dead for at least 10 minutes, maybe longer. Then eventually CNN reported it. I gather that Perez Hilton had it before anyone else but I don't follow his blog.

Watching Twitterfall was interesting because many of the tweets were people coming online to ask if it was true - a bit like people sticking their heads out of the window or coming out onto the street to see what was going on. But they all, like me, wanted someone to verify the truth.

In my case, I took the truth from the LA Times, but it could as easily have been the BBC or Reuters or CNN. I guess I had my array of trusted sources lined up and was checking all of them to see who was most up to date. The LA Times, of course, would have had many local reports coming in to them. If Jackson had been taken ill in Leicester, we would all have been looking at the Mercury for up-to-the-minute reports.

Finally, of course, the LA Times is both print and digital, with ads in both, and a price for the paper. Do you think that is a viable business model?

[keith perch]

Like you Sue, I watched this unfold on Twitter and TV and blogged very late into the night about how interesting it was that all the hundreds (thousands?) of tweets in the early hours of the drama were about which mainstream media sources had or had not confirmed his death. Do you think we'll always need the professional journalists to be our reliable sources, to verify events? If so, we have to find a way to pay for them ...