By Tom Seipp, Sports Editor
We all will remember where we were when the news of Kobe Bean Bryant passed away.
For me, it was really the first moment that would eventually become a “where were you when” moment. I was just six weeks old when the attacks on the World Trade Center occurred, too young to remember Michael Jackson’s death and too young to remember the killing of Osama bin Laden.
Some of my earlier memories of basketball consisted of Kobe playing in Madison Square Garden. The Kobe game I remember most is when he faced off against the New York Knicks and Jeremy Lin during Lin’s “Linsanity” run. I became a big Kobe fan at the end of his career and I always enjoyed watching him develop a strong bond with his daughters.
I reacted like everyone else. I was shocked and saddened for an extended period of time. I didn’t believe the news.
When I heard the report, I immediately went to where I get all of my news; Twitter.
TMZ was the first media outlet to report Bryant’s fatality.
TMZ reported the death at 2:32 p.m. Nineteen minutes later, ESPN’s Senior NBA Insider, Adrian Wojnarowski ‘91, confirmed Bryant’s death.
TMZ has had a long history of breaking news of celebrity deaths, especially in Los Angeles. TMZ was the first to break the news of the death of Michael Jackson, Whitney Houston and Prince.
This time they did it prematurely.
TMZ made the news public before the Los Angeles County Police could notify Vanessa Bryant and all of the other families involved.
Los Angeles County Sheriff Alex Villanueva wasn’t happy with the reports, either.
“It would be extremely disrespectful to understand that your loved one has perished and you learn about it from TMZ. That is just wholly inappropriate.”
And this isn’t just about Kobe and the Bryant family. There were four other families that were devastated by the accident. If family members of those victims knew their loved ones were on the helicopter with Bryant, they likely, and unfortunately, found out in the same way.
It didn’t stop there.
At 3:09 p.m., Matt Gutman of ABC News reported that all four of Bryant’s daughters were on the helicopter with him.
Just minutes later, Alexis Wainwright of FOX 16 News reported the opposite. Wainwright reported that none of Bryant’s daughters were on the helicopter.
We later learned that Gigi, Braynt’s 13-year-old daughter, was on the helicopter.
If you ask Aaron Chimbel, dean of St. Bonaventure’s Jandoli School of Communication, what one of the three most important keys in journalism is, one of them is to get it right.
These reporters failed to do so here.
The contradicting reports led people to question the various reports. It took 70 minutes for TMZ to release the news that his daughter Gianna died in the accident, too.
At the end of the day, it’s not about breaking the news first, it’s about breaking the news correctly.
Another example of poorly handled media was in the reaction of LeBron James.
Sixteen hours after James passed Bryant on the NBA’s all-time scoring list, James said in an Instagram post that he spoke to Bryant before getting on the team plane to head back to Los Angeles. James learned of Bryant’s death on that very flight.
NBC 4 Los Angeles waited for James and the Los Angeles Lakers to land. NBC had a camera recording James from the moment he stepped off the flight. The captured video captured James hysterically sobbing and hugging multiple people.
This is where privacy comes in. There aren’t too many people that spoke to Bryant in those final hours of his life. James did. There is no need to stalk a camera feed hundreds of feet in the air to catch a reaction. Was there something on that film that enhances or changes this story in any way?
In the end, Sunday was a tragic day with the loss of Kobe Bryant and the eight others on board. It was also a terrible day for the way journalism and media outlets handled this catastrophe.
Seipptw19@bonaventure.edu
