Web abandons Michael Jackson well before old media lets go
The death of Michael Jackson has shown up the differences between old media such as newspapers and rolling news stations, and news media such as blogs, online video sites, and social networks. An important barometer of how each of these mediums work is how quickly they have let go of the story and moved on to the next big thing.
In a word (or three) old media hasn’t.
Michael Jackson died in his L.A. home from cardiac arrest on June 25, 2009. The news of his heart attack and subsequent death from it broke on the Web first, with celebrity gossip site TMZ beating all others to the punch.
Interestingly though, it was arguably old media which proved its worth in this instance. The Web may have been faster with the news but it was the long-running traditional news organizations such as CNN and the BBC that people turned to for confirmation. The story on TMZ was treated with suspicion until it was verified by multiple other sources.
So here we are, 10 days after the event, and there’s a new picture to look at – the one concerning how the media, both old and new, are treating the story now. BuzzMachine has done exactly that and shown how new media has long abandoned Michael Jackson and the circumstances surrounding his death, while old media continues to dig deep and give their audience what it thinks it wants.
Mentions of Michael Jackson on blogs went through the roof in the three days after he died, but they quickly dropped off and are now approaching the flat line state they were in just before he died. Twitter Trends was full of Michael Jackson and variant mentions for a couple of days following his death. Now, he barely even registers, unless or until a new story emerges concerning him. YouTube and Digg both show similar peaks and troughs.
Compare all this to the almost never-ending coverage of Michael Jackson, his family, his kids, his former partners, arrangements for the memorial and funeral, and tour tickets on television news channels and in newspapers and there’s a clear definition between the two schools of reporting.
You could argue that this is because old media digs deeper, looking for new angles to enlighten their readers and viewers with, but I think it’s more to do with the fact that the Internet moves at a frightening pace. What is page view gold one day is of no interest to anyone the next. I’m afraid the Web has already let Michael Jackson go, even though many of his fans don’t yet seem able to.
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July 5th, 2009
Really interesting article, I completely agree. It’s indeed scary how quick our culture is moving these days..
July 5th, 2009
I’m still shocked that he’s gone. I loved his music, even as a kid I listened to Michael Jackson. I look back now and remember how fun it was to listen to his music and wear the clothing and dance around with friends. I will truly sadly miss him. I have his music on my ipod and I have a bunch of ringtones on my phone. If anyone needs Micheal Jackson Ringtones I got mine from http://www.michaeljacksonsringtones.com
RIP MJ
Your Music will live on forever
We Love You
July 5th, 2009
Or you could say people have the attention span of a parakeet when something shiny goes by.
But really, I’m not getting your fixation on this subject. They are basically just two different methods of information delivery. One is passive, the 24/7 news cycle which has to fill large amounts of time. You can’t click to a specific item, they just keep rolling by to put time between commercials. People don’t normally watch it for huge chunks of time.
They also cover it in depth, multimedia with video, directly asking questions of the people involved so you get to judge expression and inflection and other nuances you don’t get from bloggers.
The “old media” is also starting to use email and twitter live, have websites etc….so I’m not really sure how accurate your description is.
What is happening is the “new media” doing much self congratulation and self important preening when the real star is the tech.
People risking their lives in Iran after all the news media was booted was amazing. Proxy Servers and smart phones got the story out and there was no way to shut it down, making a massive effort of expelling westerners fruitless.
It’s a Gutenberg level event of profound change.
That’s not saying there isn’t some very good work being done by Websites and bloggers, but I don’t know if tossing out unverified stories or miles wide and inch deep coverage is journalism.
Information is still uncovered and reported by people with talent, good instincts and hopefully, ethics and the standards to be credible. The web is still mostly like the old teletype machines, passing on a paragraph or two of facts with some editorializing.
Old media, at least here in the States, suffered greatly when autonomous news divisions got folded into entertainment divisions. Our last Presidential election might have been the end of traditional journalism. The pressure to produce and scoop others has basically undermined my ability to believe in unbiased reporting.
July 6th, 2009
Slightly ironic then that this article appears on a new media platform, thereby actually prolonging the new media coverage of the story…
July 6th, 2009
An analysis of the view numbers of MJ related articles on Wikipedia gives a similar impression:
http://infodisiac.com/blog/2009/07/michael-jackson/