Mainstream radio and TV seem to beat the web with their coverage of Michael Jackson's NOT GUILTY verdict. 
photo from this blogger's TV Set with CNN real-time coverage.
Online searches on Google even after the CNN announcement of not guilty verdict did not turn up any real-time reports from news media showing the verdict at the same time. Most of the reports on Google seem to be 18 minutes behind on their coverage. First real-time coverage from a 'dot com' was MTV.com's update of their previous story saying Verdict is due in.
Michael and umbrella as he heads for limo after acquittal.
SANTA BARBARA D.A. COMMENTS:
Thomas Sneddon,Jr. District Attorney, Santa Barbara says, he won't argue with verdict. "We don't select the victims and the families they come from."....Claims of Klu Klux Klan and relatives on jury are untrue, Sneddon says. Asked if this is the end of your office pursuing Michael Jackson, Sneddon says, "No Comment".
Live radio on net but real-time headlines hard to find.
You could find live radio feeds on the ne,t but as a viewer/user I could not find real-time feeds-- no crawls. AOL's home-page did not stop flickering between other stories on GM etc. No live-crawl on AOL. CNN .com did link to live radio feed. But no real-time photos. As noted, the first online coverage of the acquittal I saw was from MTV.com.
Where is the site that lines up all TV screens? Personally, I'd like to see a website that shows the real-time screens of all channels or at least all major channels. That would mean that I don't have to click between ABC, NBC, CBS, FOX, CNN, CNBC, MSNBC (who appeared to lose their satellite feed). Plus of course, international channels.
Breaking news page Pointcast where are U?
And of course, I'd love to have a special page to go to for 'breaking news' online where i get multiple feeds from videobloggers on-site, podcasters on-site, internet radio reporters and fan comments. As of 3:15 PST I still have no fan comments from the television coverage. Fan comments could have come real-time from websites even via blogs? Where are the real-time bloggers? Once upon a time, a service called Pointcast was promising real-time feeds to my desktop of news, weather etc. Alas, it too is long gone.
Mainstream media -- not so 'lamestream' after all...lots of fun made of radio and Tv coverage by bloggers and blogeratti-- but when it comes down to the wire, mainstream media seems to win in my eyes and ears. Please update me with your findings, maybe I just didn't know where to search online?
Update: 8:10 p.m. PST -- Good comment below, please note that I did not just use Google for my search, I did go directly to CNN.com and to ABC.com and to other 'news' sites and also Technorati.com -- but you're right that the challenge seems to be in the 'real-time' search. Maybe once the video feeds and video search takes off this will be a different story? I'm very open to hearing how everyone else gets 'real-time' breaking news via the web or even via wireless-- I wonder if any of the SMS services were offering instant verdict text messaging? A quick check on Google at 8:10 p.m PST did show headlines in NEWS (which is where I checked before) logged by time of post on Google -- so perhaps I'm misunderstanding what you mean by Google only updates monthly. Google news updates much more frequently. Right now it seems to be carrying stories only 5 minutes old -- at the search time in the afternoon during the Jackson verdict everything listed appeared to be at least 20 minutes old -- too old for my taste. Here's what I found right now:
POSTS ON GOOGLE NEWS RE: JACKSON as recent as 5 minutes ago from this post.
| Dance to freedom in fame's shoes New York Newsday, NY - ... Michael Jackson is hosting man-boy slumber parties at Neverland? Oh, that's just Michael! ... 2, speaking for the whole Jackson panel. ... |
| Jackson wins prosecutor showdown Melbourne Herald Sun, Australia - MICHAEL Jackson's acquittal today marks a career-crushing defeat for his arch-nemesis, the prosecutor who has twice failed to put the star behind bars. ... |
| Fans celebrate after Jackson acquitted Bradenton Herald, FL - SANTA MARIA, Calif. - Jubilant fans of Michael Jackson erupted in chants of ... As Jackson left the courtroom, more than a dozen white balloons were released. ... |
| In case with more than 180 witnesses, accuser's mother stands out San Jose Mercury News, CA - SANTA MARIA, Calif. - The witnesses who were the heart of the case against Michael Jackson wound up serving as inadvertent stars for the defense, convincing ... |
You could be right about TV picking up the story quickest, but I should point out that your research is flawed. Google does not keep index of pages in real time, rather it revisits them every 30 days or so. Thus, a search on Google is not a valid way to determine whether "the Internet" has picked up on something that has happened minutes ago.
Posted by: Ty Martin | June 13, 2005 at 05:49 PM