Celebrity death: No other kind of event electrifies and illuminates so many parts of the Internet at once. Heath Ledger's sad, untimely end triggered almost instantaneous reactions in the online media, social networks and just about anywhere users could post their thoughts and multimedia memorials.
Caution, speed-reporting ahead: If you watched the story of Ledger's death explode chaotically across the Web on Tuesday, with facts, errors, inconsistencies and confusions flying every which way, you may have concluded that in the new digital media's race to break stories in minutes, accuracy has been left in the dust.
Chief among the media's switchbacks was the early nonfact that Ledger's death had taken place at the New York apartment of Mary-Kate Olsen. Celebrity news site TMZ.com and even the New York Times' City Room blog reported this bit of misinformation before they unreported it.
Importantly, however, neither the New York Times nor TMZ got it wrong. It was the New York Police Department spokesman who had the story mixed up -- the media were simply parroting incorrect information.
When the spokesman later corrected himself, the sites rushed to update the story, but readers were critical of the changes.
"TMZ is in such a rush to break the news," was one comment, echoing dozens of others, "that they are usually wrong first."
But here's the problem: Stories have never arrived to the world fully formed or vetted. Journalists have generally had hours -- not minutes or seconds -- to craft a story from the blast wave of facts and factoids that comes in the wake of a bombshell.
What people are seeing now is an old-fashioned process -- reporting -- as it unfolds in real time. If the public wants its information as raw and immediate as possible, it'll have to get used to a few missteps along the way and maybe even approach breaking stories with a bit of skepticism, like a good reporter would.
Here's an easy one to be skeptical about: Another TMZ post, titled "The Last Photograph of Heath Ledger," appeared soon after the story began circulating and featured a shot of Ledger from Saturday on the set of his latest movie. The photo was credited to INF, another celebrity gossip site.
A moment's reflection would tell you that if Ledger died Tuesday, it's more than a little unlikely that the "last photograph" of him was taken three days earlier.
