The Internet Failed Us
Upon the Death of Michael Jackson on Thursday just after midday, there wasn’t much media attention for over two hours. At first, media stories circulated while everyone tried to make sense of it all. When Jackson’s brother made a statement at 2.26 pm LA time, the news papers and TV broadcasters went into a frenzy thinking up headlines for the evening papers and the 6 o’ clock news – all the while the web was left to its own disorganised devices.
Wikipedia and Twitter came under attack with slanderous comments and hoax stories of what really happened. Numerous posts were made to Jackson’s Wikipedia page while many blogged about the singer’s life, and at that time ‘apparent’ death.
The first confirmed reports surfaced after 4pm just when the American nation were settling in from work. However, the Europeans were already tucked up in bed none the wiser.
Here I am in Ireland waking up on Friday morning with a text message from a friend in America. It was a joke about the singer’s death. I couldn’t make head or tails of it but when I powered up my laptop Yahoo! Headlines carried the story in full. I was shocked by the story while America was already fully informed.
Astonishingly, many ticket sales sites carried on selling tickets to fans unaware of the singer’s death until midday Friday. Other sites carried news stories of Jackson’s death while displaying advertisements for his upcoming concerts dubbed ‘The Final Curtain’.
In my mind, and the mind of many others, serious questions have been raised about the internet. I had always assumed that news stories travelled the world in hours, even minutes. With YouTube, Twitter, MySpace and even good old e-mail, everyone thought that if something happened in the States we’d all know about it in a few minutes – I guess we were wrong. The internet still has some serious cracks that need patching up.
