Julia Boorstin’s Jackson report
mumbles away TMZ death scoop
Posted: Sunday, June 28, 2009
A CNBC breaking news report Thursday could not have better illustrated the divide between old media and new media.
According to Jake Coyle of the Associated Press, TMZ.com reported Jackson was dead at 5:20 p.m. Eastern time.
Just after 5:59 p.m., CNBC aired this report. Note in one instance in our transcript, words are combined to convey as precisely as possible how they were spoken:
"I'm Julia Boorstin with breaking news on Michael Jackson. We have been investigating these reports that Michael Jackson was taken by an ambulance to the UCLA Medical Center. TMZ is reporting thathehaspassed but we have not confirmed that. UCLA Medical Center says they cannot confirm. Um our Jane Wells has spoken with the Fire Department who says they did respond with a full-alarm assignment to a house in his neighborhood so we are still working on that. Michael Jackson is the King of Pop. He ... had 13 Grammy Awards, 13 No. 1 singles, sold over 750, uh, million albums worldwide. He also according to the Wall Street Journal was half a billion dollars in debt most recently. We are investigating this and we will be keeping you posted on updates. Back to you."
The goal of this report was to say that Jackson was dead while not really admitting TMZ had it before NBC or anyone else did. There was but one super-important word in this report. Yet that word was barely even understandable. Boorstin's dreadful handling of the third sentence was a case of a proud news organization trying to have it both ways but only creating an embarrassing, if brief, journalistic episode.
Consider Boorstin's report, line by line:
"I'm Julia Boorstin with breaking news on Michael Jackson. We have been investigating these reports that Michael Jackson was taken by an ambulance to the UCLA Medical Center." — "These reports," meaning not all are being given 100% credence, and no mention yet of death.
"TMZ is reporting thathehaspassed but we have not confirmed that." — Boorstin uttered the first half of this sentence so quickly it was borderline unintelligible, the last word of the jumble came across as incomplete (requiring a rewind to fully get it), she wouldn't even use the word "died," and the last six words amount to phony cover that 1) is superfluous and 2) would not be used if the scoop was from the Associated Press.
"UCLA Medical Center says they cannot confirm." — More phony and unnecessary cover because this was a TMZ scoop.
"Um our Jane Wells has spoken with the Fire Department who says they did respond with a full-alarm assignment to a house in his neighborhood so we are still working on that." — CNBC is on the story too, just so you know.
"Michael Jackson is the King of Pop. He ... had 13 Grammy Awards, 13 No. 1 singles, sold over 750, uh, million albums worldwide. He also according to the Wall Street Journal was half a billion dollars in debt most recently." — Completely useless filler with little to no relevance to this story, added to make this extremely meager report sound beefier than it obviously was.
"We are investigating this and we will be keeping you posted on updates. Back to you." — Fair enough. Although there really wasn't anyone to get "back to" because this report aired after the conclusion of "Fast Money" and just before the opening of "Mad Money."
CNBC had shown "breaking news" text at the bottom of the screen during "Fast Money" a half-hour earlier, at 5:29. That cited a newspaper, saying "LA TIMES: LA FIRE DEPT. SAYS MICHAEL JACKSON RUSHED TO HOSPITAL."
Note that with at least 30 minutes to chase this, it was only decided to air a maybe-death report not by breaking in to an actual program but showing it during a typical commercial slot, 5:59, when many people have taken a break or changed channels. Boorstin's less-than-a-minute report ended neatly just before Jim Cramer's "Mad Money" launched at its normal 6 p.m. time.
CNBC was hardly the only big news organization struggling with this. Los Angeles Times writers Scott Collins and Greg Braxton note that CNN, which like TMZ is owned by Time Warner, did not rely on its sister company's scoop.
And Collins and Braxton, contrary to AP's Doyle, claim TMZ only broke the death news at 5:44 p.m. Eastern and that "Many outlets around the world instead credited the news to the Los Angeles Times, which bannered Jackson's death on its website at 2:51 p.m. (5:51 p.m. Eastern)," a mere seven minutes later. That would've given CNBC and Boorstin a chance to say "The Los Angeles Times and TMZ are reporting that Michael Jackson has died, TMZ first reporting it..." But either CNBC didn't see it fast enough, or decided that an L.A. Times confirmation wasn't enough to go on.
Or maybe the L.A. Times' explanation of its own Web report isn't quite accurate. According to Brian Stelter of the New York Times, "For more than an hour, TMZ was essentially the only outlet claiming that Mr. Jackson was dead."
The Associated Press confirmed it with a "FLASH" at 6:27 p.m. Eastern time, citing "A person with knowledge of the situation."
And thus we may have discovered another element of Internet controversy — the impossibility of truly knowing when something was first posted on a Web site. Perhaps it can be described as a meritocracy shaped by the likes of Google and others, that all we can know for sure is what's there when we look, likely assisted by a search engine.
Newspapers are regularly described as victims of the Web, but this is perhaps the first major news event to upend even television. Unlike 9/11 with staggering footage of burning buildings, this time there was virtually nothing to show, save for a few people gathered at a home and a hospital, and thus this became a pure news race.
And it was won by a Web site, not a newspaper or TV network.
An obvious angle for media watchers is a discussion as to whether TMZ paid for this tip. Consider this passage by Stelter: "Like many other media entities, TMZ pays for photos. (Harvey) Levin also said the site will pay 'tip fees' that lead to stories, but not for stories outright. He refused to say whether he had paid any sources during the Jackson coverage, but he denied that the site’s staffers pay police officials or nurses."
Before the Web, only big media could report breaking news. Nowadays, anyone with a Web site could conceivably do it, if they're good and/or lucky and/or willing to pay.
Paying for photos is already massively commonplace. Thursday's event was enormously rare. But because of media companies' increasing reliance on their own Internet operations for growth and perhaps sustainability, and the awesome demonstration Thursday of how a massive scoop like TMZ's can draw a horde of Web visitors in a hurry, it's entirely possible that paid tips could enter the mainstream regardless of whether TMZ got its scoop for free.
Given how CNBC portrayed the TMZ report, it should not have included it at all. Either you believe a report is credible and air it as such, or you ignore it. CNBC execs were obviously uncertain like everyone else, but this is purportedly why old media still pays some news folks the big bucks: To make on-the-spot journalism judgments in moments such as these.
And it's remarkable that CNBC didn't break in to "Fast Money" with some kind of report sooner. Instead, the network decided that yet another promotion of David Faber's new book, this one for five minutes, should carry on uninterrupted.
Boorstin is an excellent news reporter. We don't know how much of this description was dictated by others. Hers was a muddled, uncertain response to a dramatic situation that demanded something much better. It wasn't one of her, and CNBC's, better moments.