Kobe Bryant and The End of the News Cycle
On January 26, 2020, retired NBA player Kobe Bryant and eight other people (including one of Bryant’s four daughters) died when Bryant’s helicopter crashed in Calabasas, California. The magnitude of the tragedy was compounded by several factors, including Bryant’s age, his reputation as one of the best basketball players of all time and his status as a Los Angeles icon whose celebrity transcended sports. But secondary to the human tragedy was an event in media history: the end of the news cycle as we know it.
The term “news cycle” itself is pretty antiquated, and reflects the days when print journalism was the primary source of information for most Americans. Newspapers were printed at the same time every day, and stories that weren’t filed by press time had to wait for the next edition. Papers would publish special editions as needed (“Extra! Extra! Read All About It!”), or even add big news to an issue already in production (“Stop the Presses!”) but most news only broke once or twice a day.
Even the advent of radio, and later television, news didn’t end the concept of a cycle because most programs aired at specific times of the day. If Walter Cronkite didn’t have it in his script by 5:30 PM, it wasn’t going to be on the air that night. Over time, local stations started adding news programs, but even these new time slots were deadline-driven.
1980 was the beginning of the end of the news cycle as we know it. That’s when CNN first showed up on cable and introduced the idea of round-the-clock coverage. All of a sudden, time didn’t matter as much. If a story broke at 8:00 PM, CNN didn’t have to wait until the following evening to air it. Other networks quickly followed, and for 30 years we’ve lived in an era of 24-hour news where deadlines are as outmoded as linotype and newsboys in caps hawking special editions.
The coverage of Kobe Bryant’s death marks the next great change in media: the 24-hour news cycle minus the constraints that most news organizations abide by. Online news is nothing new, and plenty of stories have broken on the Internet before appearing on television or in print, but in most cases reputable outlets have waited for official confirmations and fact checks before publishing their stories. The Bryant crash was broken by the controversial TMZ site less than two hours after the incident, and even before the police had officially announced the death of Bryant and the other people on the helicopter. In fact, it seems that the story may have run before all of the victims’ families knew about the crash.
One by one, professional news organizations fell in line, each reporting the news without independently confirming it for themselves. Of course, it worked out for all parties this time, not just because the story turned out to be true, but because the subject (Bryant’s death) was a big enough event that people actually sent out corrections and clarifications as the cycle developed. But this degradation of journalistic standards constitutes a major threat to society. The problem with newsmakers, who are supposed to be the communicators and interpreters of fact, publishing without evidence is that most of the time people don’t actively follow the news arc and see how stories develop. All they remember is the initial headline. The result is that public figures, corporations and even the average citizen can have their reputations damaged because news organizations want to be the first to report on a story. All it takes is one bad headline or incorrect fact, and that becomes the version of “truth” that people remember.
The issue—and the solution—is ultimately one of incentives. News organizations need to reward reporters who take the time to properly confirm reports, and readers need to demonstrate their appreciation by subscribing to publications that maintain that level of integrity. At a time when newspapers and other traditional media are fighting for their survival, it’s more important than ever that news organizations lean into those journalistic principles that distinguish them from tabloid web sites and anonymous reports on Twitter.