Who Told You Michael Jackson Died?

29 June 2009 297 views No Comment

So, we already know that the ‘King of Pop’, Michael Jackson have died. It was first announced at 5.30am Singapore time (and I am sleeping) and I got the devastating news through my Facebook the moment I woke up. Everyone on my Facebook were talking about his death. But ever wonder how they got to know about this in the first place?

Well, I did a research and found out that the news first broke from a blog, TMZ. It seem to be a celebrity blog that wasn’t even reliable. However, they made their headline very convincing, ‘Michael Jackson Die’ even before the hospital official announcement.

The news spread on popular social networking sites and even on Twitter. At one point, Twitter was all about MJ’s death that it threatens to overshadow what was going on in Iran. Major news agencies finally picked up the story and started running with it.

One of the advantage of Social media is that, since news agencies can’t report anything without confirmation, many breaking news gets to you faster than from traditional media. Having said that, social media is still a double edged sword. News that got to you through new media have a tendency of being unreliable. So my advice is to verify it with other sources before spreading it.

I will leave you with one of his greatest hits. May MJ RIP.