First the Wall Street Journal publishes a breathless article announcing Steve Jobs’s liver transplant. The article was unsourced and disgraceful in its violation of the Apple chief executive’s privacy. Then the New York Times got all pissy about being beaten to the scoop and published a ridiculous story about Apple’s corporate secrecy.
Now this, from the Times on the death of entertainer Michael Jackson:
“The death of Mr. Jackson was the latest Twitter-enhanced luminary spectacle that is specific to Los Angeles, with the customary body-slamming paparazzi, weeping celebrities, grim-faced officials trying to maintain dignity and tourists seeking their succor along Hollywood Boulevard, where the police were forced to place barricades on Friday to hold back the throngs seeking to peer at his star on the Walk of Fame.”
You’re kidding me, right? Twitter-enhanced luminary spectacle, body-slamming paparazzi, and tourists seeking their succor? If that’s not the worst piece of “news” reporting I’ve ever read, it has to be in the top two.
Never mind that the photo caption at the top of the article notes a billboard “tribune” at the 02 Arena in London. The billboard is presumably a tribute.
Everyone makes mistakes—even stupid ones—but the US paper of record is really, really slipping.
No links because links are votes and represent a value of exchange on the web. The Journal and Times are undeserving lately.
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