Michael Jackson’s Dead: Now Comes the Mainstream Media’s Death

Tough media week for superstar Michael Jackson. Imagine, your death being announced by TMZ. Horrors!

Actually, I adore TMZ. It’s the one program and site that makes me laugh all the time. A lot of tabloids can learn from it. They should stop yelling at us. TMZ “covers the waterfront” in LA—there is no story they don’t have first. And it’s something their brothers at Time Warner (heck, they are all owned by the same Dad) should take a hint from.

RIP, Michael.

On the night of Michael’s death – may I call him Michael? –pristine and often other-worldly CNN spent hours looking uncomfortable and acting like they were phoning in election night results. Their viewers – the ones with ether abilities–knew the superstar was dead. But the major media lost their balls and waited. And waited. They looked silly. And for the first time, I turned the TV nets off.

That night’s background noise: “Rock With Me.”

Meanwhile, Twitterers covered the horrible event even better than CNN – questioning TMZ but keeping in mind the Harvey Levin institution usually gets their scoop (no matter what). I’d never seen such venom toward the cable news.

Since then, the “actual media” (quotes mine) has turned this into a strange story—the usual “how did he die?” pieces, as if that will ever be honestly pieced together. And the most fun story was that the mainstream media missing Jackson’s death because of inability to believe a “not quite credible” news source. Best Bullshit Ever. Credible to whom? This is not the National Enquirer, which uses a stable of freelancers to aurally-record each interview with “a best friend” of someone as proof of purchase. TMZ has a full-time, on-the-scene staff to interview real sources, taking photos and –yes-paying for clues. I’m sorry if MSNBC doesn’t want to be aggressive; it’s because they’re not budgeted for it. But I did see MSNBC salivating while interviewing a non-NBC celebrity journalist about TMZ while waiting for “the verdict.” (So MS couldn’t be accused of---what was it again they were worried about?)

As someone who worked as a scrappy and pit-bullish reporter for a decade before heading to the bright side of PR, I commend TMZ for knocking barriers down and saying “Fuck you” to everyone who hates them. (I admire that.) When I was a reporter I slept outside a source’s door until they came out for work (for the original Us magazine, in a story that became the movie I Love You To Death). I doubt the current MSM would do that, because they’d see it as unseemly.

Heck. A story is a story is a story, paraphrasing Gertrude Stein. TMZ rules right now. That Levin character is proud of his people—and the skills they’ve amassed. It is naïve for us to say MJ’s death is not a step toward the slowly-diminishing role of the “trusted sources” we’ve come to depend upon.

Hungry, nonstop TMZ will survive this downturn (they have a second series starting this month!); while that self-serious, slogan-inundated (“Keeping Them Honest”) CNN may end up being the TMZ Network. And that’s a story I can’t wait to cover!

What’s your take, Kevin?

Twitter @laermer and @badpitch