Shortly after news reports surfaced that pop star Michael Jackson was taken to the hospital with cardiac arrest, someone posted a fake news story that he had died. (Here's a screen capture of that story.) The story was created on a Web site called "Fake a Wish - Celeb Fake News Generator." The fake news story appeared to have been published by a Global Associated News, which doesn't actually exist. Twitter tweets linking to the fake story were exceeding 10 per second for more than a half hour. At some point, the site TMZ reported an un-sourced story that Jackson had died. My working thesis is that they fell for the Global Associated News prank. But then Drudge Report and other major sites linked to the TMZ story, and reported Jackson's death as fact. All that happened before the actual scoop, which was this blog post by The Los Angeles Times. Well after the L.A. Times story, the original TMZ piece was updated and made respectable with sources specified.
I can't prove it, but I think TMZ fell for the hoax, hundreds or thousands of news organizations all over the world linked to the TMZ story, but then the fake story became real when Jackson died nearly an hour later.
The remaining question for TMZ was: Was their story based on the fake news report? If not, they should tell everyone what it was based on.
UPDATE: The L.A. Times asks, "What if TMZ had been wrong?"
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Comments:
I was wondering the same thing after I saw your Twitter post about the fake story, followed shortly by the TMZ post. An interesting thing about the fake story is that CNN is reporting a conversation with a Jackson family spokesperson saying that Michael was having issues with prescription drugs and that the people round him were "enabling" him.
That's pointless, as MJ is indeed dead.
Michael Jackson is gone but his music will live on forever.
The hoax is not that Michael Jackson has died. He's dead. That much we all know for sure now. Too many sources have confirmed this.
However, the hoax seems to be about the way he died and that some sites already reported about his dead even before he had died. Or before the news about his dead was confirmed. With the whole World "listening" to the Internet, such news will spread around real, real fast.
There will be a lot of rumors spreading around the World now. About Michael committing suicide, or being murdered by the CIA. Maybe some Christian or Muslim organisation will claim to be responsible for his death. Or Michael will live on just like Elvis does and the dead body in the hospital is just his evil twin or whatever.
Let's hope that journalists will give his family *and his children* some rest to mourn about their loss. Michael's dead will just start a whole set of legal problems about his inheritance, all his debts, damages for concerts that now have to be cancelled and most importantly: the custody over his children. There's still enough material for journalists to report about Michael's legacy for many, many years.
well there are people who make the fake news and then there are people like you who without verification spin it.
this is journalism came down to a bunch of people fighting to be the one who broke the news or be the one who call it fake first
Discussions about how the internet allows false news stories to appear legitimate is far from pointless.
My guess is that either he sent it himself, or one of his house full of people did. If you were found before noon and they did 45 min of cpr, chances are that even if the cpr was continued in the ambulance and the hospital until the official time of death around 2:30, he was deader than dead. For all we know, he died in his sleep earlier that morning and just didn't get up for lunch!
We should have had a few more days of mourning for Farrah, but Michael's death pushed her right off the headlines. I'll bet People magazine was planning on a cover story of Farrah, but will switch to Michael instead, and give Farrah just a one-page spread. She deserves so much more. And to think she didn't have to pay hush money to anybody during her career or was ever accused of molesting young kids! We miss you Farrah!
The last two days, no matter where you were in the world, if you looked at a newspaper or turned on a TV, you saw the face of Michael Jackson. On Friday night's half-hour broadcast of "NBC Nightly News" host Brian Williams spent three minutes discussing news other than Michael Jackson.
Now that the shock has warn off, fans are celebrating Jackson's life, rather than mourning his death. News of possible drug use is surfacing in the Jackson case, and to fill the time, reporters are now discussing his financial empire, which is in disarray. But we already new that.
The news media is now finding time to devote to other matters: the economy, unrest in Iran, global warming, Bernie Madoff, and Gov. Mark Sanford, the wacky Republican governor from South Carolina, who disappeared for most of last week. His Wednesday news conference caused a media frenzy, but the Michael Jackson news temporarily saved him from media scrutiny. Now he's back. We all love a good scandal.
http://www.paulsolomon.blogspot.com
Well when a doctor says he isn't breathing and they were pumping him...performing cpr....one could easily say he is dead and we are trying to revive him. So...was it really fake?
I wouldn't be a bit surprised if the whole thing was a put on to pay off that half a billion debt by boosting sales of records & memorabilia &/or to change mike's whole identity so he can get a chance to see what it's like to live like us normal abnormal dysfunctional functioning folks. But since the truth is that drugs or rather a cocktail of drugs over a long period of time is what eventually took his life or rather took the life out of him, I guess that is the most believable realistically speaking. I am just glad he was in such high spirits even in the end.
Tejur Star Jetur
Now that Jackson children have shown their unveiled faces to the world, people are now claiming that they're not his children. It's so stupid that people are saying that Michael Jackson's kids aren't his kids because they're white. That's such an ignorant statement. I mean, even if the kids aren't from his flesh and blood, they ARE his kids. He raised them, he fed them, he clothed them, he sheltered them, he LOVED them. There's no other way to define a child's father other than that. I'm from the Pacific Islands and if a white family or a black family adopted me, I would consider them my flesh and blood because I AM their child and they shared their lives with me and treated me as their own. I don't care if those kids came from a peetri dish or an egg/sperm bank or an orphanage. He chose to share his life with them and he was a great father.
It's time to stop being so closed-minded and ignorant. America's children are a mix of all races. We have so many different backgrounds and heritage and it's completely stupid to say that a black man's children are not his own because they don't look like him.
It's one thing to pick on MJ, but it's totally disgusting to pick on his children.
That is exactly right. It doesn't matter if one is 'black' or 'white', MJ provided for his children as any loving father would of three beautiful, intelligent children. Even if MJ's death is a hoax, we wish him all the best in luck and in health if this is what he truly wanted. MJ, if you are still alive and read this, we don't care if you are black or white, we don't care whether your children are not really yours, we don't care about how you look MJ, as you are KING OF POP and we love you, we love your music......we love you jsut the way you are xxxxxxxxxxxx
The poor kids. M.J. moved as far away as he could to keep them from hearing tabloid news. It's a safe bet that they don't watch these reports, but sadly, it will effect them, because they know that the rest of the world doe.
To the poster of the story, you do know that Michael was DOA, right? Michael was dead when the 911 call went through so there was no "Hour Later"... Hmmm
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