Diversity at Work

Michael Jackson's death rocked the world of journalism as much as it rocked his global fan base. A non-traditional media outlet, TMZ, broke the story while mainstream media held off announcing his death for well over an hour.

At the National Association of Black Journalists convention in Tampa on Thursday, media stalwarts discussed the dust-up that left many journalists wondering about media credibility and competition.

KNBC-TV anchor Beverly White of Los Angeles moderated the panel, which was titled "Beat It, Bad or Dangerous? What Michael Jackson's Death Tells Us about Media Competition and the Future of Journalism."

The discussion featured Toure, MSNBC contributor and Rolling Stone contributing editor; Bryan Monroe, former vice president and editorial director of Ebony and Jet; Jon Klein, president of CNN U.S.; Terence Samuel, deputy editor of TheRoot.com; and Adrienne Samuels Gibbs, senior editor at Ebony magazine.

Panelists discussed the shifting ways in which breaking news is reported and, in particular, the traditional media's reticence to pronounce Jackson dead after Twitter and Facebook were abuzz with the news.

When it comes to major events such as Jackson's death, Klein said, credibility is key.

"We go through this all the time whenever there's a breaking story -- this tension of being first or right. You make damn sure that you got it right, and it's OK if someone else beats you to the punch," Klein said. "I often heard people say: 'I didn't believe it until I heard it on CNN. Our mission first is to be accurate. This whole thing about being first is overrated."
 
Traditional journalism practices, Samuel said, won out when it came to the media's coverage of Jackson's death. "In some ways, despite all the tweeting and Facebooking," he said, "what you had here was a very old-time media scoop where somebody had better sources."

Several of the panelists said they first heard of Jackson's death on Facebook and Twitter.

Samuel argued that Twitter, albeit interesting, is not journalism. "The truth is that Facebook updates and tweets are not journalism. They're information," he said. "People have an extremely high demand for information."

Toure disagreed with Samuel about Twitter, saying reporters and news consumers shouldn't give more or less credence to a story simply because of the way it's delivered. "The mode of delivery doesn't make it not journalism or journalism," he said. "... A tweet can be journalism."

But online sources aren't the only competition. "Everything is our competition," Gibbs said. "Online news organizations -- they are designed to give you as-of-this-moment information. We feel where we compete with them is in the analysis." Gibbs noted that Ebony's September issue of the magazine was near completion when news of Jackson's death broke. Editors had to scramble, she said, to commission a commemorative issue.

The role of celebrity gossip Web site, TMZ, came under scrutiny as attendees asked whether the site now has greater credibility since breaking the Jackson story.

"TMZ was ahead of the story and they were right," Toure said. "And if it doesn't validate them, what will?"