TMZ reporting it as a cardiac arrest...

http://www.tmz.com/2009/06/25/michael-jackson-rushed-to-the-hospital/

and get the advertising on the BBC news site that doesn't appear in the UK. They've just started doing google ads, and the ads that appear under this story are:

"Stop anxiety attacks"
"Stress management secrets"
"Anxiety is a living hell"

Make of that what you will. Those gigs are never ever going to happen, are they? Great soap opera though, the whole thing.

TMZ reporting he's dead.

Sky News is reporting it as well.

although they're sticking with "unconfirmed"

It all looks bad. No smoke without fire etc....

Before his life is 're-evaluated' in a more positive light by the media if he's gone? I give it 48 hours...

appears to be reading out the TMZ website postings as news. Very odd. Now they are bigging up the credibility of TMZ. News services have changed.

first he was gonna only appear for 13 minutes at those o2 gigs, now the punters won't even get that much...

As someone else pointed out, the rolling news stations are just showing their computer screens and pointing at the internet. I presume they'll load Twitter in a minute and search the relevant hashtag.

As with the Iran election (CNN showing a re-run of Larry King, Twitter going mental) it really shows the balance of power shifting in news reporting...

TMZ could Rickroll the entire world media, live, right now, if they wanted. Every rolling news channel.

Just saying...

Bless 'im, is really trying to keep it real on Sky News. It's one of those awful "rolling news" moments, where they all think there's a massive story, but they're just not sure.....

… another 70s icon has definitely died
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/8118426.stm

.

And the inevitable media-fest. Think I'll avoid the TV for a few weeks and listen to the music instead.

It's a stunt.
I'll stake my reputation on it.
Probably.

All I can hear is the hum of many brains trying to come up with the first bad-taste joke. Obviously not to be posted until it's been confirmed.

Doing manfully so far. Peter Bowes, telling it like it is, and not over sensationalising it. No independent confirmation yet.

are reporting the TMZ website story as a story.

If Uri doesn't know, what hope for the rest of us?

Reports say CNN have a picture of a stretcher being taken into hospital. Well that confirms it, then.. Honestly, this is terrible news reporting.

... he doesn't know either.

So much for being a psychic or whatever it is he claims.

Hold on now he's in a coma. Hang on...

Like a doctor? No.

Uri has actually just knocked it on the head. The plethora of available media means that we don't know.

Now reporting that he is dead...

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2009/06/pop-star-michael-jackson-w...

Asking everyone to light a candle for the 'most talented individual on the plant'. Where's Paul Gambicinni?

... still saying "coma".

Is that live footage of his 'more ardent' fans arriving at the hospital I see?

Confirmed on Sky news......

Getting a little more pessimistic. They obviously believe the LA Times. What does twitter say?

!!

... now saying "dead". LA Times and CBS News are the sources.

so it must be true

Interesting watching all the outlets saying that other outlets are saying that he's dead, but nobody wanting to put their cards on the table.

Blimey.

confirmed now on BBC

Dragged onto Five Live right now.

BBC have said it, so I'll believe it. Poor Michael. Lets remember him when he was good:

like other guys.

a guy?!?!

Everyone's announced the death - is it me or are we actually living in an episode of Charlie Brooker's Newswipe?

Weren't there media reports of it being a hell of a job to find someone to insure these shows?

Also apparently this is going to bankrupt a lot of secondary ticket agencies who will now have to provide refunds (let's hope they didn't spend all that money they made, eh?)

When thera are no facts - hit the 'objectve' specualtion angle. Get a number of music biz 'experts' (sorry Andrew Harrison) to talk about how important he was, add in the ubiquitous major fan as well as tossing in a psycologist with ABSOLUTELY no knowledge of the case with a cod profound diagnosis.

Roadmanager - "Lad's, here's the sheet music, you've got to learn at least one Jackson number.."
Who's going to be first?

The kingpin of the worldwide Jackson fan club has described it as a 'nightmare'. I'm not sure. Let's say it again - meanwhile in Iran/ Gaza...

Bacon's just said: "How can we imagine a world without Michael Jackson?" and Quentin Wilson (his presenter's friend) is struggling to find the correct emotion. Feck's sake lads,

agree that it's impossible to imagine a world w\o Michael Jackson. A listener informs us that there is a new star in the sky tonight.

"MJ will honour his London dates, but as the Thriller zombie."

Sick, but funny, even though I liked him. After all, when he was good, what wasn't to like?

Seems to be having a competition amongs celebs as to who can be the most sad about his death. Current front runner : Darren Hayes with "My hero. I loved you. You made my world a better place. I am devastated." but close run.

I remember when Kurt Cobain died and the Nirvana tour was cancelled, many fans held onto their tickets as souvenirs. Will you do the same or hope to get a refund? Just wondering...

Have any of the medical 'experts' now being interviewed by the roling news channels blamed it on the boogie yet? Or is it too soon?

He'll never biodegrade.

It'll be all Jonathan Ross's fault

A Jackson family spokesman is 'stunned' after the family were said to have hugged and cried. That's breaking news that.

What great music

Brian Oxon, a Jackson family spokesman says, (on CNN) that they are playing 'Beat It' at UCLA hospital. I think this may an evening for the refrain of 'feck's sake lads'

that 'BAD' was not his 'commercial peak'. god help us.

...and who's this bunch of charlies being interviewed at glastonbury??

CNN's Ted Grapplehorse (that may not be his surname) is speculating that is a prescription drug overdose, with ABSOLUTELY no basis WHATSOEVER

just say she was "dessicated"?

...Charles Shaar Murray's obituary of Elvis:

'Stardom Kills. One way or another, it wreaks an awful destruction on all but those with the utmost humility and inflexibility and self-knowledge....

...They made him a god, after all, and he was only a man, with a man's strength of mind and body, and no more....

As it was, we turned him into what he became, but we didn't have to pay the price.'

"We measured out our lives by Michael Jackson records" - Quentin Wilson who, in an hilarious Wimbledon inspired Freudian slip has also just refered to "Billie Jean" as "Billie King".

"The last of the giant pop stars like Elvis, Sinatra and the Beatles" - has anyone told Lady Gaga? Or Miley Cyrus?

Some interviewee said he'll be remembered in the same breath as Mozart and Beethoven!!
Words fail me!

Doing a complete re evaluation of him. History being re written. He must have been a lovely fella etc etc etc

Rumours of Jeff Goldblum having died too. (I'm not kidding)

SKY rentaquote has just said Michael Jackson is not just a musical but a cultural icon - not least because of the moonwalk which he invented and 'last did publicly on top of a car after the 2005 child sex case'. I am now officially in a Littlejohn universe where you, literally, couldn't make it up.
It has to be time for bed before a channel cold calls me for some reaction - every other eejit has been quoted thus far.

Still saying he has "died", according to reports. Not confirmed but they are doing everything but play funereal music. Come on Michael...have the last laugh.

Cup of tea.

Monkey.

to apologise.......eh!

Mark Ellen when we need him?

... it took them some time didn't it.

the last UK journo to interview him i believe back in pre Thriller days.

radio 1 'doing a diana'= loads of slow mournful stuff. well orbital, but SLOW orbital.

Perhaps appropriately, a bizarre evening, not least as I found out watching General Sir Michael Jackson on This Week.

Never saw him live, but when I was at uni I saw the touring show of the Motown 25th Anniversary show, on a big screen with Gary Byrd as compere, and the hall was rammed as if He was there. When he did Billie Jean it was as real as if he was in the room. Extraordinary really.

Of course it will be everywhere now, and the tabs will go ape with every piece of dirt they ever had wind of. And yes, at Glastonbury of course. I await Jarvis Cocker doing Earth Song with great interest.

Reverend Al Sharpton speaking - pulls out a photo.....
Jees, he can't half yap. 'We should never stop talking about Michael Jackson' I fear he never will.

Breaking news - They've moved on - someone's telling it like it is on CNN..

Sharpton's ahead of the curve, before everyone but Geller and Joe Pesci. We are, truly, through the looking glass people...

the grim reaper tonight, popping up everywhere and seemingly pleased that he predicted this in the mid 90's.
Well done, mate.

Jacko's death now 'more important' than Marley, Lennon, Elvis, Sinatra etc. This is history, apparently. But isn't everything?

This twitter nonsense has to stop. Jeff Goldblum? Harrison Ford?

Has Lord Lucan turned up yet?

MJ! god bless the new chart era.

i wonder who'll do the worst/ least dignified cover at Glastonbury.

... is this a sign?

Danny Baker's incredible NME feature on the Jackson 5 was called the 'Great Greenland Mystery' and is collected in Dylan Jones' 'Meaty Beaty Big and Bouncy' anthology of great rock and roll writing. It is still the highest point of rock writing for my money. I read it several times a year as does, I believe, Raylene the Air Canada hostess mentioned in the opening section

Its a sad end for a very troubled, immensely talented, probably clinically insane man. Turn your TV's and radio's off now.

"Don't Stop til You Get Enough" is a cracking record. Apart from that I can take or leave his music.

Night night.

in the loop of concert footage they keep showing on the bbc, is the funniest thing ever.

time to turn the telly off, me thinks.

The crowd at the hospital is not very big.

Who is now the most famous living person on the planet?

Sorry to go back again to Rob Fitzpatrick's excellent piece in this month's magazine but this is a great example of his thesis: there is massive amount of tabloid MOR nonsense which constantly semi-permeates our lives which we don't really have any real emotional connection to.
Other than a Motown Gold (Vol 2, one track - ABC), Jackson was someone who never, ever, touched my life in any meaningful way. I couldn't give a feckin monkeys (apostrophe advice needed here).
Don't have any of his work, never seen anything he has been involved in and he only ever touched me (and I use those words advisedly) when I wrote headlines starting with the word 'Jacko'when I used to assemble and sub the Pg 4 briefs column working on daily newspapers.

First Saxon dies, then Jackson.

The Klaxons must be shitting bricks at the moment, then!

There's a huge hole in our understanding of the importance of MJ's passing - what does George Lamb think? I need to know...

They're show pics of him on the stretcher. Nice.

http://halfhearteddude.wordpress.com/2007/08/30/jacko-yoshi-the-heartbre...

is there

Someone in New York (Sky News) has just said he thought MJ was immortal and would never die - he clearly had a lot of time on his hands to even consider that, even for a moment. I suggest jenga to fill the gap in his life, perhaps reiki, or a Human Biology 101 continuing education programme .

No mention of executives' expenses on the front covers tomorrow, I'll wager. What with Steven Wells, Farrah Fawcett and Sky Saxon, could this be a very weird Day of Death? Nothing to do with Swine Flu I hope...

I'm the same age as you, from the same country, but Jacko never touched me in any way.
Yes I saw it on RTE, yes I know loads of people who saw him at Slane, but he meant nothing to me at all. And I think he meant nothing to most people other than as a tabloid figure.
He's made nothing of anything of any note since the late 80s and despite the hooha tonight nothing of that has changed. Really

.

#
the wine bar at Glasto has turned into a full on jacko singalong.
by guideguardian via twitter at 1:49 AM

Rolling news has just morphed further into The Day Today: "we have James from the New Musical Express magazine here..." - Christ, it's not been called that since 1876 - and the president of the fan club reckons it's the biggest loss in music in 50 years - RIIIGHT. Meanwhile, Uri Geller has never been busier. Shameful.

Sad day for everything. Swells' last words: I blame it on the sunshine, I blame it on the moonlight, I blame it on the boogie. Spooky. One of the women who made me feel 'a bit funny' on Charlie's Angels when I was a nipper dies, and now - whatever you think of him - the man whose songs a few generations grew up with tops the lot.

One of the side effects of the post Diana obituary gush has been it's collary - the inhuman shrug and occasional sneer at the death of a human being. Some are so deperate to lay claim to being "different" from the herd, in the face of mass mourning, that they forget normal decency.

No-one, regardless of their celebrity, deserves to be sneered at in the moments of their death and Jackson is no different.

"I Want You Back" is one of the most thrilling moments in popular musical history and his voice is truly iconic and a part of the world all on here profess to love.

I'm personally saddened by the death of a man who meant little to mebut who I also recognised was an incredibly gifted performer.

That president of the Jacko fan club is still there on News 24. Guess no-one else would want to stick it out for so long, not even that unbelievably unphotogenic guy from the NME. (That was Comic Book Guy made flesh, surely). I think he's called Hugo Blank, or something, and he will surely get a medal for Services to Fan Worship.

I've been listening to the Bunnymen, for it is the anniversary of Pete de Freitas's death. It really is a night of death.

..to what could,should have been a brilliant career. Despite all the weirdness towards the end he did produce some amazing stuff and 50 is way,way too young.I wished him well, he was obviously very damaged but I don´t think he meant any harm.

Gambo still ricocheting from TV studio to radio studio in a single bound. Turn off his 'He was Judy Garland' stories on BBC Breakfast, turn on Radio 4 and there he is already.

Blimey, full marks for stamina anyway.

Do you think Bubbles will be one of the pall-bearers?

A part of my childhood died today. Michael Jackson was the first 7" single I bought. The impact he had and the contribution he made to the music industry should not be underestimated. He was and always will be an Icon, a true Icon.

http://www.tmz.com/2009/06/26/paul-mccartney-mj-was-a-talented-boy-man/