A search engine optimization site seomoz.org says no.
Danny Dover, an SEO consultant has laid out a timeline of how the news of Michael Jacksons death traveled across the internet.
I just happened to be on the X17 entertainment news site when the story broke on the first page. I immediately went to Google and entered MJ’s name into the search box and came up with nothing. I also turned on the television looking for some type of news. After channel surfing for awhile, I decided to check out TMZ.com and there it was. A picture of an ambulance offloading a stretcher with credit for the photo to X17Online.
Dover reports that X17online.com beat TMZ by 20 full minutes.
Dover’s Timeline
A Timeline of How News of Michael Jackson’s Death Traveled Across the Internet19:21 – One of Michael Jackson’s employee’s calls 911
The next forty-nine minutes are best described as the calm before the storm. The Los Angles Fire Department arrived at Jackson’s rented mansion in Bel Air and family members were alerted of the news.
20:10 – (Story Breaks) A small entertainment site called x17online.com breaks the story.They post photos and a brief story a full 20 minutes before the much larger entertainment site TMZ.com posts the news. Information goes live on the internet. BOOM!
20:30 - TMZ.com posts “Michael Jackson — Cardiac Arrest”
TMZ.com posts the story on its homepage and the story is distributed to hundreds of thousands of people via RSS. My guess is they paid a pretty penny for the image above and it paid for itself ten fold with all of the links TMZ got from the story.
Later on Managing Editor Harvey Levin preened on television as he boasted about how his website was the first to announce the story. X17 remains silent about TMZ’s claim. Do you suppose a little bit of coin changed hands? Dover thinks so. The photo is missing X17’s watermark but they are given credit at the bottom of the photo. It appears that TMZ purchased their “scoop”.
Dishonesty in journalism lives on…
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