Celebrity Death Watch, the slightly too early edition: When first is too fast

When a celebrity of the magnitude of a Michael Jackson dies, it's no small matter who gets credited with the scoop. In this case, that would be TMZ.com, the online tabloid best known, until now, for bringing the world footage of a drunk Mel Gibson ranting about Jews. While major news outlets like CNN and The New York Times were merely reporting that Jackson was in a coma, TMZ (which, like DailyFinance, is owned by AOL) was confidently asserting that the King of Pop had passed away.

"We were getting calls from everyone under the sun, established news operations, asking, 'Are you sure?'" Harvey Levin, who runs the site, tells the Los Angeles Times. "That's such an odd question. We would not have published it if it were not true."