TMZ now says its stories accusing a star of TV's The Bachelor of appearing in a porn tape were wrong; two porn sites were promoted in TMZ posts

The corporate porn-pushing gossip site TMZ.com is at it again, living up to its reputation as the sleaze site that gets it wrong-- while leading readers to multiple pornography sites in the process. Only this time, the shaved bronzed midget frontman and his team are libeling a young woman in the process-- and continuing to do so, even after admitting their boner.

No pun intended, Harvey.

In this latest outrage, the victim was a contestant on a network television reality series. Beginning on February 25th, the pigs at TMZ began accusing the woman of "allegedly" staring in a "celebrity sex tape" it claimed was making the rounds of its pornographic partners. Lazy mainstream news media, protecting themselves with the usual disclaimers, spread the unconfirmed report:

"A new celebrity sex tape is being shopped around the porn community -- and the person peddling the tape says the star is Rozlyn Papa from 'The Bachelor.'

"TMZ has learned the tape is being shopped to a variety of XXX companies all over all over L.A. -- including Live******.com--"

TMZ, of course, did not redact the name of the porn website. It promoted it with the teasing story, and led its readers there.

This morning, there was a new porn website to promote, with another unconfirmed story:

"A sex tape starring 'Bachelor' reject Rozlyn Papa -- allegedly -- has made its way onto the Internet and it happens to end just like the 'Bachelor' finale ... with someone on their knees.

"The short tape -- which features a woman certainly resembling Rozlyn performing a sexual act on a sizable gentleman -- just popped up on the website P******.com."

Of course, the name of the porn website was spelled out (and we can't confirm whether the "allegedly" was added to the post after the fact).


Late this afternoon, after promoting at least two porn sites (not counting the other sites they might link to automatically), TMZ produced a followup story this afternoon: The woman in the sex tape apparently wasn't the Bachelor star, after all:

"A website claiming to feature a sex tape with 'Bachelor' reject Rozlyn Papa has a problem ... because the star of the flick may not be Roz at all.

"Roz's lawyer directed us to a 2004 porn video featuring a woman using the name of Lucy Anne.

"It appears the video the website in question is featuring was lifted from the 2004 porn video. The website only posted a portion of the 2004 video. When you look at that video as a whole, it doesn't look like Lucy Anne is Roz."

The incorrect stories, naming Rozlyn Papa as the "alleged" woman in the sex tape, are still posted on the TMZ website.

Anyone out there a little fed up with this venereal disease of an operation, spawned and financed by AOL and Time-Warner and now owned by Warner Bros.?

Any journalists interested on who's getting kickbacks from the porn operations the subliterate sleazebags so casually and obviously promote?

We've outlined their crimes against journalism and Hollywood.

Does anyone care?

Faked? TMZ's timestamp scandal shines spotlight on alleged readers' comments

The corporate porn-pushing gossip site TMZ.com is facing real scrutiny in wake of their clumsy cover-up of a stupid mistake first pointed out here.

It began yesterday morning when the sleazy site posted a story about the death of Deadliest Catch star Phil Harris, claiming at 9:09 AM that sources said he'd "died about an hour ago." After we showed that mainstream sites around the world had reported Harris' passing eleven hours earlier, whoever is manning the TMZ controls for the shaved bronzed midget frontman did not correct the mistake, but added a note claiming "This post originally went up last night at 11:45 PM ET."


This unprecedented sidestepping caused howls of derisive laughter in journalistic and show business circles. It also has also shined a light on the "readers' comments" that follow TMZ postings-- alleged reader reactions that sometimes number in the hundreds and are used to attest to the site's supposed popularity. Is the TMZ posse cooking the comments as well as facts and time stamps?

A Tabloid Baby reader brought this latest wrinkle to our attention. Our favorites are the comments that were posted before TMZ posted the story:

"Ok I know I ain’t smart or nothing so maybe Harvey could explain this to me The 'Original' posting was at 11:45PM on February 9th *allegedly*

But comments to the posting are, first of all, NOT in any kind of linear state, they follow no consistent logistical pattern

11:37 PM Feb 9th 2010
9:21 PM Feb 10th 2010 1
1:35 PM Feb 9th 2010 *Um? That would be “Prior” to the “Original” posting


This trend is peppered through out the comments albeit not as glaring as the above example. Not to mention when I perused the comment section earlier today there were NONE from February 9th, at all, not one.


I felt this was explained away or would be explained away by the fact that it was posted so close to midnight and therefore would only contain comments from February 10th thus far.

Is it possible that the good folks at TMZ are manipulating these postings?


Perhaps even 'creating' the postings themselves to appear that they have a large diverse audience?

Is it possible that it is in the job description of all TMZ Staff members that they must also post on their own reports using several pseudonyms?

Is it possible that TMZ’s credibility is on shaky ground? Or that they have encountered some rough seas?"

We're sure it can and will all be explained away easily.

LOL! TMZ.com now claims this morning's story "originally went up last night"

We knew it would only be a matter of time before the slugs at the corporate porn-pushing gossip site TMZ.com tried to cover their asses after we pointed out an embarrassing mistake. The sewer site posted an item this morning at 9:09 a.m. claiming that Phil Harris, star of Discovery's Deadliest Catch, had died "about an hour ago"-- even though the mainstream news media had reported on the sad and tragic passing the previous evening.

In the past, as with its Michael Jackson timeline hanky panky, TMZ's shaved bronzed midget frontman and his lost boy contingent have been known to shift posting times, change headlines and other ploys to avoid looking foolish or downright wrong. But this time, they knew we'd nailed them on the time stamp. So what did they do?

Even we had to laugh along with our readers at such unprecedented amateurish egregious assholery in attempted ass-covering as the disclaimer they added to the post after our mention:

"*This post originally went up
last night at 11:45 PM EST"

Never seen that one, before Harvey! What can we say? Except maybe

"Hahahahahahahaha... (breath) HAHAHAHAHAHAHA..."


Meanwhile, we'll let our readers join in the fun TMZ-humiliating:

Anonymous said...

Go back and check it out
They put a disclaimer on it saying it was originally posted last night
Covering their exposed asses

Anonymous said...
The others posted at 10:02 PM and 10:59 PM and TMZ is NOW claiming in their updated post that:
"*This post originally went up last night at 11:45 PM ET"
If you "Originally" posted at 11:45 PM and he died about an "Hour ago" that would make it 10:45 PM
Then how do the others post BEFORE you, even by your own admission, how can you claim "EXCLUSIVE" ???
Get your act together TMZ otherwise people might not take you seriously
LOL

Here's the original Playboy photo that TMZ doctored and claimed to be a picture of JFK with nude women

Thanks to The Smoking Gun, here's the shot from the 1967 Playboy magazine article, "Charter Yacht Party: How to Have a Ball on the Briny with an Able-Bodied Complement of Ship's Belles," a doctored version of which the corporate porn-pushing gossip site TMZ.com actually tried to pass off as a "mid-1950s" shot of John Fitzgerald Kennedy: an "exclusive" photo "that could have changed history." Despite the obvious, clumsy doctoring of the photo that we pointed out this morning, TMZ had the moronic audacity to state "TMZ had multiple experts examine the photo -- all say there is no evidence the picture was Photoshopped."

We find it hard to believe that none of the size queens in the TMZ jacuzzi noticed the tan lines or body shapes that didn't fit the era. Obviously, shaved bronzed midget frontman Harvey Levin and his boy team knew they'd be caught out within hours of posting the obvious fraud.

So what's their game?

We can only hope someone screwed up and that they paid big money for it.

Columbia School of Journalism fetes Harvey Levin amid his latest TMZ scandal

So who else noticed that the week the Los Angeles Police Department placed two cops on leave in its probe of how its evidence photo of the beaten pop star Rihanna wound up on the corporate porn-pushing gossip site TMZ.com, TMZ's shaved bronzed midget frontman Harvey Levin was in New York cruising for recruits and being feted at the Columbia School of f'ing Journalism?

While two women are left hanging and facing the loss of their jobs because the Time Warner-AOL operation (and CNN cousin) once again perverted the justice system (tainting the jury pool and all that) when it allegedly paid $62,500 for the celeb S&M porn, little Levin was lecturing a room of privileged J-school students the way he charms his boy team on TV, dressed WeHo Polo shirt clone and seducing resumes from the elite with his tales of big money and Hollywood glamour amid lowbrow taunts that the newspaper and magazine industry are dead. This is the same Columbia School of Journalism whose Sig Gissler rejected Tabloid Baby's Pulitzer Prize nominations before the Pulitzer board could decide for themselves.

TMZ survives and thrives because the clueless old school mainstream operations suppport and use it as a source. We don't think TMZ would fare quite so well in the rough and tumble journo world without the hundreds of thousands of dollars his corporate overlords give the staff to throw around to corrupt public officials and ruin it for the rest of us by making real whistleblowers gunshy,

A tip of the Tabloid Baby hat, meanwhile, to The Enterprise Report, which does it on a shoestring and has been in front of the pack and on top of the latest TMZ/Levin scandal from the start...

TMZ caught lying about "exclusive"

Corporate porn-pushing gossip site TMZ.com got hoist by its own stinky petard with its silly attempt to be first to post a John Mayer mugshot. Beaten to the punch by The Smoking Gun, shaved bronzed midget frontman Harvey Levin and his subliterate rent boy crew tried to make it seem otherwise by claiming credit for the "exclusive" anyway, with the help of a fraudulent timestamp on the post.


The Smoking Gun caught them, just as we did when TMZ played around with time, facts and truth in reporting on the death of Michael Jackson:

"TMZ posted the photo at 3:10 PM, with the site's customary 'EXCLUSIVE' claim. While the TMZ item carries a backdated "posted" time of 3:03 PM, a check of the item's comments section shows that the first comment was recorded at, not surprisingly, 3:10 PM, moments after the photo appeared on the gossip site... TMZ's own commenters were under no illusion as to where the photo first appeared... One reader noted, at 3:08 PM, 'Posted on TSG.' A minute later, another reported, 'The Smoking Gun has it on their Website. It was a 2001 Arrest in Georgia for speeding.'"


In an attempt to wriggle out of the mess, the TMZ tools changed the time stamp again when they posted their apology. Too late.

What scumbags.

Mayer had offered $25,000 if TMZ could find the shot. Notice the site chose animal rescue organizations rather than a group like Children of The Night, which rescues runaway teens on Santa Monica Boulevard...

Rumor Rat charts the decline of TMZ.com

Gotta love that Rumor Rat and the way the pack is nibbling away at the corporate porn-pushing gossip site TMZ.com and its cheesy shaved bronzed midget frontman by charting its daily decline on the Most Popular Websites chart. Not only does the daily tally provoke a smile that brings to mind the old Family Circus comics, but the newcomer with rats inside every TV infotainment show it gives the sewer site a lesson in witty, literate writing with lines like these:

"Rumor Rat hears that TMZ Honcho Harvey Levin's losing so much sleep over his site's falling numbers, that he's practically on the verge of making an appointment with Dr. Conrad Murray so he can get some shut-eye.

"The latest daily website rankings are in, and TMZ continues its downward slide, checking in at #404.

"That's TMZ's first time below the "magic-400" mark since June 25th, when Levin made his luckiest managerial call ever by reporting Michael Jackson's passing several minutes before the doctors at UCLA medical center had even pronounced the singer dead."

Ha!

Full circle-jerk: Corporate porn-pushing gossip site mirrored by porn parody site

It all comes full circle for the corporate porn-pushing gossip site TMZ.com as the sleaze site gets the hardcore porn treatment in a new parody website called TMSleaze. The site, which is nearly indistinguishable in its tawdry look and content from the nasty, faltering ego operation, features porn parodies and in its only obvious casting slip, reportedly includes the hirsute hedgehog porn actor Ron Jeremy in the role of shaved bronzed midget Harvey Levin (you'll have to check out the site on your own for confirmation; it's NSFW).

A tip of the Tabloid Baby hat to Gawker.com for the tip. Gawker, in turn, thanks Gawker Video Deity Richard Blakeley.

Rumor Rat has fun nibbling away at TMZ

Over the past few years, we've become known as the primary critic of the corporate porn-pushing gossip site TMZ.com and the immoral online exploits of its shaved bronzed midget frontman Harvey Levin, a tabloid pretender who combined the worst elements of local TV news coverage with a jealous confrontational hatred of a short person-- with a disdain for wit, literacy or context-- into a gossip site that makes the viewer feel dirty through the simple act of scrolling (and yes, we realize that "waxed" may be the proper description but we stuck Harvey with the monicker a while ago, so we're stuck with it as well).

Our problems with TMZ have to do with its poisoning of the celebrity culture and Hollywood coverage, its subliterate postings, bullying, lack of respect for great artists and talent, and dirty, slimy, megabucks-backed tactics. In other words, when we see happen to trawl by the TMZ trough and encounter a floating post that really disgusts us, we write about it. There's no real joy dealing with these criminals against journalism.

That's why we offer another tip of the Tabloid Baby hat to The Big Cheese and his (her?) minions over at Rumor Rat. On an almost daily basis, the Rumor Rat gang tweaks and pokes and ridicules TMZ for its everyday foolishness, embarrassments and offenses. And Rumor Rat does it with a witty, joyful hilarity that's helping turn Hollywood tabloid coverage into something smart and fun again.

This morning alone, we see Rumor reporting on how TMZ's website traffic has declined steadily as its oversaturation of the Michael Jackson story continues, and points the way to another report on the latest accusation that TMZ is using its corporate millions to pay for material that it legally should not be getting its hands on, let alone be publicizing for profit.

As Harvey, who know has been chasing his tail around the TMZ ofice in a search for the Big Cheese's identity night say: "Rats!"

TMZ's crappy clip show canceled

Beyond Twisted, the clip show brought to you by the subliterate scumbags at the corporate porn-pushing gossip site TMZ.com, has gotten the axe only three mind-numbing weeks into its eight week "trial run" by Warner Bros. and Fox television stations.

The cancellation is of little surprise and surely pales beside the original decision by cash-tight syndication suits to allow TMZ's shaved bronzed midget frontman Harvey Levin to enter the genre of concise, well-written and often dramatic reality clips, based on his middling success with his sewer site's whitewashed inconsequential syndicated sister.

Giving Harvey Levin and his classless crew of corner boys a daily show that requires subtle writing skills and topnotch production values is akin to giving Chevy Chase (or Sharon Osbourne or Magic Johnson or Howie Mandel or...) a talk show.

Bad enough the show's title sounds like it was spit out by a 13-year-old. One would think hubristic hairless Harvey's corporate overlords would have gotten the picture when he originally pitched the putrid project under the title, "WTF?" (that's the type of wit and style that circulates in his circles). While the show's website has already been purged from the Internet, the official promotional material still refers to the program's content as "funny and gross"-- good examples of the crude, sleazy and childish worldview and methods of a Fagin and his team of street thugs who've soiled the celebrity scene with foul intrusive reports like the one yesterday in which directional microphones were used to record private conversations between sad Lindsay Lohan and her girlfriend, behind a closed gate, in a supposedly exclusive residential neighborhood, at five o' clock in the morning.


Does one's dedication to the arts and entertaining the masses negate all expectations of privacy even while inside one's wall- and hedge-protected home? Has Harvey Levin paid off everyone in the Sheriff's and police departments?

Yet, TMZ spreads like a virus and our criticism goes unnoticed--

NO, IT DOESN'T!


A tip of the Tabloid Baby hat to the scrappy, funny, mysterious and never cheesy newcomer to the celebrity news and gossip scene, Hollywood's Rumor Rat. The anonymous Big Cheese and his rat pack have come out of their hole, nibbling away at bigs like Perez Hilton and joining us in targeting offenders like the Levin gang. Rat has not only proven to have excellent sources inside every syndicated infotainment operation (including Harvey's pit) in town, but manages to come up with scoops that may be overlooked because they hit a week or two before anyone else catches up.

Case in point: the Beyond Twisted cancellation. Rumor Rat had the scoop last Wednesday.

Rumor Rat has the buzz and has generated speculation as to his identity. Once he upgrades his site to include individual story links and reader comments, the Rat is bound to nibble its way to the top.

Uncle Walter

Ten years ago, we sent a copy of the pre-publication galleys of the book Tabloid Baby to the office of Walter Cronkite, in hopes that the great newscaster would write a nice blurb for the book, as his colleague Mike Wallace had done.

On a return phone call, Walter's assistant was apoplectic. "There's no way he's writing anything about that book!"

A few good tabloid news notes in the clip above: Walter Cronkite's reporting of the death of John F Kennedy was burned indelibly into the minds of many a young future tabloid journo. His show of emotion is a reminder that Steve Dunleavy didn't invent the practice. And Dan Rather's confirmation of JFK's death was premature-- he didn't really have it confirmed, but like the shaved bronzed midget Harvey Levin and his corporate porn-pushing gossip site TMZ.com would do in the case of Michael Jackson decades later, he went for it.

With Uncle Walter's death, the era of 20th century news and its avuncular, Voice-of-God, trusted, probably liberal and with some lineage to Edward R Murrow "anchorman" can safely be called officially over-- which doesn't bode well for the Brian Williamses and Katie Courics, who keep those Burberry trenchcoats in their closets.

Mainstream media begins to realize TMZ's Jacko death scoop was not what it seemed

It's taken them a few days to catch up, but the established mainstream media is beginning to clear the stardust out of their eyes and realize there was something fishy about corporate, porn-pushing gossip site TMZ.com scooping the world on the death of Michael Jackson.


We laid out the evidence on Friday that under the leadership of shaved bronzed midget frontman Harvey Levin, TMZ took the same information that everyone else had and gambled that it spelled out that Jacko was dead-- that they ran the "Michael Jackson is dead" story before getting official confirmation, before knowing for sure. The upside? Well, look at how the mainstream media, from Brian Stelter in the New York Times to beaten beat writers in the Los Angeles Times, have responded with awestruck wonder at the supposed technological and journalistic brilliance of the jealous, corrupt mutts at TMZ for going with the story a good forty minutes before anyone else (see Dan Rather at Parkland Hospital). The downside? There's not much of a downside. There was enough confusion in which smarmy sleazy Harvey could have slimed his way out of it, and gotten the attention just the same (see The Hitler Diaries).


This afternoon, the Los Angeles Times website runs -- and Drudge headlines as a "whine"-- a "comment" piece entitled, "How would we have reacted if TMZ had been wrong about Michael Jackson's death?"

Alexandra Le Tellier writes:

"TMZ would become the first outlet to announce the singer’s death. What came next was a surprise. Before the RIPs and the 'he touched us all' jokes, many users began posting jabs aimed at CNN -- more specifically, its irrelevance as a news source...

"Has technology’s ability to deliver information at such a rapid pace corrupted us? ...Have our standards for accountability dissolved?

"...And who was TMZ’s source anyway? The site’s managing editor, Harvey Levin, said he and his staff made hundreds of calls, but he didn't divulge whom they spoke to, which begs the question of whether they confirmed the news with a reliable, accountable source -- as is required by the Los Angeles Times -- or if they spoke to someone who was violating patient confidentiality.

"When 19 employees at this same hospital, UCLA Medical Center, were busted in 2008 for snooping through Britney Spears’ confidential medical records, it was hard not to wonder why they’d have risked their jobs. Were they looking for a story to sell just as their colleague, Lawanda Jackson, had done? She was indicted in 2008 for selling information about Farrah Fawcett and accessing hundreds of other files. If that’s the case here, are we seriously going to trust people who’re willing to break the law for some fast cash?

“'A curious thing is at play here,' (NY Times syndicate ethics columnist Jeffrey) Seglin continues. 'Few people expect TMZ or Drudge or the National Enquirer to get things right or to report on issues of substance. When they do, at least so far, it’s a bit of an anomaly. So the consequences for getting it wrong among such sites do not seem terribly high. If CNN, Fox … got such things wrong, the consequences would likely be higher...'

"Would TMZ take the same approach to a political figure, which in turn could pose a threat to national security? Let’s hope we never find out."

Though the article is deep in the Times' little-read Blog section and its writer is under the impression that TMZ got a legitimate scoop through illegal, paid sources, it's significant for a few reasons. The writer quotes an ethicist from the national competitor in New York, whose kid TV writer led the TMZ cheerleading over the weekend-- a sign that after their initial starry-eyed reaction to being beaten on the story, the old world news media is gathering the forces to get back at the sleazy TV lawyer who broke the rules. Drudge may call it a "whine", but obviously unhappy being lumped in with TMZ, he posted the link on his influential page, which means talk radio producers and other news organizations too lazy to come up with their own ideas will pick up the TMZ story.


And even though the TMZ gamble paid off in the end, the Jackson death stunt does not bode well for TMZ's plans to encroach further into Washington, D.C. politics and matters of national importance. Its corporate overlords Time Warner and AOL may have found it cute when Harvey and his boys began comparing the pectoral muscles of congressmen or playing their curbside ambush games in Georgetown, but they wouldn't be happy at all if their bastard child jumped the gun on an assassination and caused panic and riots in the streets.

Developing...

TMZ & Jacko: Who you gonna believe? The New York Times or Hollywood's Rumor Rat? Think twice before you answer.

In the world of journalism, reporters and columnists look to the rung above them-- or even beneath them-- for what's already been published or posted, and accept the word as fact. So it goes with the spreading story that the corporate porn-pushing gossip site TMZ.com scooped the world on the death of Michael Jackson because of its superior sources and technology. Though we proved on Friday that TMZ's early word of Jackson's untimely yet not entirely unsurprising bucket kick was based on a gamble-- shaved bronzed midget frontman Harvey Levin and his boy squad took the information everyone else had and ran with it before it was confirmed (an old, dangerous tabloid trick-- see the Bible, Tabloid Baby), the awestruck praise of the despised Hollywood sewer site is comin from "the top"-- in the form of a New York Times article that's been copied and commented upon by print columnists around the nation and world.


We should mention that the Times story is written by Brian Stelter, a boy blogger turned news man who, coming from the Internet and helping his musty print bosses understand its importance, has made a cottage industry of elevating TMZ.com in the eyes of the mainstream media.

Back in March, Stelter pushed the story that during the brouhaha over givernment bailouts, TMZ "drove mainstream coverage and Congressional outrage."

Our own criticism of Stelter's fawning TMZ coverage under the authority of the New York Times goes back to 2007, when he wrote more than one fawning article about the successful debut of TMZ's whitewashed syndicated television sister, which had actually opened to middling ratings, especially in comparison to entrenched infotainment shows.

It's an interesting situation we have here: The established, "mainstream" media doesn't trust Harvey Levin and TMZ enough to use it as a source on a major story like the death of Michael Jackson, yet it sources TMZ on other gossip items on a daily basis, praising the gutter operation and laying out the foundation for using it as a valid source in the future. Of course, the fact that TMZ is a division of Time Warner has little to do with that.


Meanwhile, we find that the unfiltered truth is coming from the independent sites run by real journalists, not TV lawywers like Levin. For example, Rumor Rat, the mysterious celebrity news site whose Big Cheese is obviously a veteran with perscpective and experience and whose team has swarmed across Hollywood and nibbled away at TMZ and Perez Hilton, recognizes who the real rats are.

TMZ's Jacko death "scoop" was an educated guess and heartless gamble that paid off

The corporate porn-pushing gossip site TMZ.com has gotten credit by its mainstream colleagues-- the ones who often use the sewer site as a legitimate news source-- for breaking the news that Michael Jackson was dead. However, TabloidBaby.com's investigation and common sense analysis of the situation makes it very clear that TMZ was ahead of the curve because they took the same reports everyone else had and extrapolated from them that Jackson had died.

In other words, TMZ's shaved bronzed midget frontman Harvey Levin and his ill-wishing celebrity taunt team closed their eyes, put all their money on the number 86 and held on tight until they found out they were correct.

In other words, they guessed.

Sound like a conspiracy theory? Speaking of conspiracy theories, there's precedent in network news and one of the greatest conspiracy theories of our time.

Let's go back to yesterday afternoon...

Word that Michael Jackson had been rushed to a hospital in full cardiac arrest was a shocker when it was text-messaged to us yesterday afternoon shortly after 2 pm. More shocking was the headline that appeared on the Drudge Report, stamped at 1:43 p.m. Pacific Standard Time:

2009/06/25 Thu 16:43:04 EST ^ (21:43:04 GMT)
REPORT: Michael Jackson Dies


The Drudge headline linked to TMZ.com, which at 1:30 PM PST had run the post:

Michael Jackson -- Cardiac Arrest



Two minutes later, Drudge switched to Code Red and all caps in a red headline accompanied by his flashing police light:

2009/06/25 Thu 16:45:05 EST ^ (21:45:05 GMT)
REPORT: MICHAEL JACKSON DIES.


Again, a link to TMZ.

Meanwhile, other news organizations were reporting that Jackson had been taken to UCLA Medical Center in full cardiac arrest-- but no one would say he was dead. There were reports he was not breathing when paramedics arrived at his home, and other reports that the paramedics were performing CPR in the ambulance. All signs pointing to a dead celebrity-- but no confirmation.

By 2:20 PST, TMZ was reporting:

Michael Jackson Dies


That, although Jackson was not officially pronounced dead until 2:26 p.m.

Even after 2:30 pm, The Los Angeles Times website and CNN were reporting that Jackson was hospitalized in a "deep coma."

Soon, the death was confirmed.

Despite the time stamp and the Drudge links, the Los Angeles Times reports today that TMZ beat the lamestream news media by only a few minutes:

"At 2:44 p.m., it beat rivals by informing the world of his death, which occurred at 2:26 p.m. ...Yet the tabloid sensibilities of the site, which is owned and operated by divisions of Time Warner, and its accompanying syndicated TV show apparently made rivals queasy. Many outlets around the world instead credited the news to the Los Angeles Times, which bannered Jackson's death on its website at 2:51 p.m."
The news hit Drudge after 3 p.m.

2009/06/25 Thu 17:07:16 EST ^ (22:07:16 GMT)

THE KING IS DEAD


While all this was going on, as the confusion reigned for more than thirty minutes, the tabloid veterans monitoring the coverage on the Internet and television simultaneously came to the same conclusion: TMZ.com did not get the scoop because its band of boys has better sources, paid sources or inside information at the notoriously-leaky hospital than their competitors.

TMZ had the same information everyone else had.

TMZ went with the death report on a hunch, figuring the odds were in their favor.

Remember, they had this information to go on:

Jacko had been hospitalized with cardiac arrest;

Jacko was not breathing when paramedics arrived at his home;

Paramedics were performing CPR on the way to the hospital.

Based on those reports, the tabloid television veterans monitoring the situation also assumed Jackson was dead. TMZ, however, went with the news.

Harvey Levin will claim it was great reporting and inside sources that gave TMZ the edge, but take our word for it: TMZ.com had the same sources as everyone else. And no one else accepted TMZ as a source and went with the story because they knew the game. Even TMZ's sister network CNN didn't take their word for it because they know the imitation tabloid television game Harvey was playing.

Harvey, who has a history of imitating other people's tabloid strategies, often to disastrous results (see the OJ Simpson trial), was playing Dan Rather.


On November 22, 1963, CBS News reporter Dan Rather was the first to report the death of President John Fitzgerald Kennedy after he was shot in Dallas, after hearing an unconfirmed report from a priest. The news went out, and Rather, knowing he could be wrong, prayed that he was right and that JFK was dead, so he wouldn't be fired (he writes about it in his book).

Harvey Levin lucked out.