I'm live-blogging the Michael Jackson news coverage. Here's where we are now:- The Los Angeles Times is in the lead -- as you'd expect, since this is breaking in that paper's backyard.
- USA Today is looking very slow off the starting block, unfortunately. At 6:40 p.m. ET, by my clock, it's now reporting that Jackson is dead. USAT had him in a coma when other major outlets were reporting him dead. And Gannett's marquee newspaper should own this story.
- The New York Times already had it big on Page One, with a strong photo linking back to its Arts Beat blog, where I saw three bylines -- before USA Today.
- The Arizona Republic reported his death earlier, too.
Worth noting: I first learned Jackson had been hospitalized during an instant-message chat with a friend on Facebook.
Reaction: grief and shock
Fans here on the island of Ibiza -- known as the spiritual home of dance music -- were stunned. "He was the first to have really expensive videos,'' said Oswaldo Liberati, recalling Jackson's broader influence on the industry. Liberati owns the ice coffee restaurant, Las Palmeras, a popular evening gathering spot on the Mediterranean's waterfront.
At one time, Jackson, 50, had been a wildly popular figure among fans worldwide. But his life took increasingly strange turns, as did his appearance, in more recent years. Civil lawsuits -- and multimillion-dollar settlements that followed -- over his close relationships with boys, certainly took their toll, emotionally and financially. At one point, I recall, he faced the very real threat of bankruptcy. I'll always remember the Thriller album, that's for sure.
At one time, Jackson, 50, had been a wildly popular figure among fans worldwide. But his life took increasingly strange turns, as did his appearance, in more recent years. Civil lawsuits -- and multimillion-dollar settlements that followed -- over his close relationships with boys, certainly took their toll, emotionally and financially. At one point, I recall, he faced the very real threat of bankruptcy. I'll always remember the Thriller album, that's for sure.Related: I've loaded Thriller 's title track into the music player, in the green rail, right.
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The one thing that nobody can ever take away from him during his lifetime, is that he was absolutely loved and adored by millions all over the world! People are lining up in droves over at UCLA Medical Center just to "in their hearts" say a final goodbye, and color is no barrier - people are all trying to be there, red, yellow, black, white and brown! His songs, his dancing and most of all (contrary to popular belief) his humanitarianism will forever live on within our hearts and minds. RIP Michael! To his family and friends, my thoughts and prayers are with you at this time!
ReplyDeleteUSA TODAY's online crew is often lagging behind. It's a cultural problem with those folks. They tend to like to work at a leisurely pace Monday through Fridays. I am talking about the core group that walks around pretending to care about the whole brand when in fact they don't. Some never worked a day at a newspaper and don't really know what it means to hustle or to work beyond 6 p.m. Others who have must have been away from print for too long because they seem to have no sense of urgency in anything they do. No real interest in nailing down the facts and getting things right and updated asap.
ReplyDeleteMichael Jackson Word Associations: Moonwalk, crotch-grab, Mcauley Culkin, Thriller Zombies, Rhinoplasty, Pepsi, crotch-grab, baby dangling and did I mention crotch-grab.
ReplyDeleteJim's brain has been dead for far longer.
ReplyDeleteThis is a big furlough week at USAT -- last week of quarter and last chance for everyone required to take a second furlough for quarter. And big news breaks. If USAT was slow on the story, as you say, it shouldn't be a surprise to anyone.
ReplyDeleteUSAT here, Jim. Sorry to disappoint. Hope we can do better in Ibiza's eyes in the coming hours. In our defense, we waited for AP to report Jackson's death, as we usually do when we don't have a reporter on scene.
ReplyDeleteWhat did you think of the speed and depth of our coverage today of Farrah Fawcett's death, or does she not matter on Ibiza? And the NBA draft? And the Supreme Court strip search ruling?
Your ill will toward your former employer is quite clear at times like this.
Ibiza is "known as the spiritual home of dance music"?
ReplyDeleteCite your source for this, please. And it can't just be chatter among Ibiza's gay population.
This is such pissy crap.
ReplyDeleteI was there last night and the only goal at usatoday.com last night was to make sure we had it right.
It was a fluid situation and if another site or three beat us by a few minutes, so be it. Rather be right than embarrassed.
Great work by all hands and the results, online and in print, are quite strong.
The bitterness by someone who made virtually no mark when he worked at Usa Today is really tiresome and transparent. You know what most people at USA TODAY said when Jim Hopkins started this blog?
"Jim Who?"
Good riddance.
A-fucking-men, 1:09 AM. I was there, too, in the thick of it for both print and online, and we did indeed wait for verification before going live with a story. And Jim? I think all of the poppers are starting to affect your reading ability. Check those timestamps again; you'll note that USAT's Lifeline Live blog had a post up about MJ's medical condition five minutes after the L.A. Times' blog did -- and we're 3,000 miles from there and have a bare-bones staff of L.A. reporters. I note that on Google News, several of our Jackson stories are ranking quite well in search results. Is that really "very slow out of the blocks"? And word was they were printing more than 300,000 extra copies of Friday's paper. I'm pretty sure they will sell out.
ReplyDelete12:52 am says: "Ibiza is known as the spiritual home of dance music'? Cite your source for this, please. And it can't just be chatter among Ibiza's gay population."
ReplyDeleteRight off the top of my head, The New York Times, Nov. 4, 2007: "As a nucleus of the electronic music scene, Ibiza attracts party people of every age and demographic, from London fashionistas and Goa-style ravers to French bobos and the prime minister of Spain."
10:04 pm: I'm well aware of the mitigating circumstances, including especially furloughs.
ReplyDeleteBut readers don't care about furloughs.
Well, TMZ beat everyone, so the whole discussion is moot. Better to be right than first? Definitely. But much better to be right AND first.
ReplyDelete