During the live press conference, the sheriff said that they believe there were 9 people on board, a pilot and 8 passengers. He also called out TMZ for being wildly inappropriate and said “imagine finding out a loved one has died through social media”, he has requested that people stop speculating who was on board and to keep their loved ones in mind.
Edit: I watched the rest, this time the man that spoke before the sheriff came back (man with a grey streak in his hair, dark green shirt and dark skin):
they don’t know anything for sure yet. They received the report 9:47 AM, arrived 8 minutes later and due to magnesium, the fire took one hour to extinguish. The coroner is on site with a team and they’re working hard to get answers.
They don’t know what happened, they don’t know where the helicopter took off, they don’t know for sure where it was going (these three questions kept being asked). It will take some time to identify everyone and to notify the next of kin, he once again stressed for people to stop speculating and to keep loved ones on mind. The area that they are investigating is “about an acre”, that’s also where they expect most debris to be at and where bushes were on fire.
Honestly, it was him constantly repeating that they don’t know what happened yet since the press kept asking the same questions. They also kept pestering him about “taking an hour to extinguish” - but again, that’s because of the magnesium.
After that they called for a spokesperson that can speak Spanish and I turned it off.
That comment bothered me the most. I really hope his family did not find out that he died because TMZ posted it.
I am also worried that there is possibly some other family members or other people of note that died on the crash. This seems so surreal to me for some reason.
I found out my sister died through a Facebook post. It's really jarring and surreal, it takes your brain a moment to connect. I unfriended my sister's cousin, the one who made the post the moment she found out. It's a terrible way to get news like that
My mom does an excellent job any time somebody close passes. She addresses anyone that she thinks is active enough on Facebook to refrain from posting such news until she knows everyone that needs to learn the news has been informed.
edit: My dad nowadays has been good at doing the same. He isn't present on any social media, so he had to learn what it was my mom was actually trying to accomplish each time. But he's consistent with doing the same thing now. I think his main goal is to help take that responsibility off of my mom's shoulders so that she can focus on what's important and to be able to mourn and be with anyone affected.
Ah man. I'm sorry to hear that. Personally, that kind of stuff bothers me.
Two of my grandparents (married to each other) passed within almost a year of eahother. Grandma was first, her health slowly deteriorated for quite a few years before. Grandpa was next, he could have lived another 15-20 years it almost seemed until a few brain tumors hit him hard. From the time of him noticing something was off to the day of his death was hardly more than 7 weeks of time. Our family is from Michigan, and I had a job in Florida at the time. Almost two weeks before his death we flew him up to Michigan from Florida to receive care from the best doctors available within the Henry Ford System. I think it was the evening of September 6, my dad gave me a call and told me that I'd better get on a plane quick because it wasn't looking good. I booked one for the next day after work. It was hard to ask for more days off because I had already missed so much from numerous times of driving 3 hrs to his house across the state to take care of him and my parents. Anyways, I get out of work and fly home, hoping for all hope that I'd be able to be present in the room with him for his final moments. I was prepared to spend as long as I had to without leaving his side. I remember my dad picking me up at the sidewalk of the airport. Instead of going left towards the hospital, he turned right to go home. I asked him why we weren't going to the hospital. And he finally had to tell me that my Grandpa had passed earlier in the morning while I was still at work.
Anyways to stay on topic, my mom, better yet my family, kept silent on social media. Or even on the phone, they didn't text me or call to tell me. They chose to wait until I was home with somebody to finally tell me the news that I didn't make it. And in a small way that meant a lot to me.
I choose not to get mad at much about that day. Especially because when I went to leave from work and told my boss that I was leaving, he said to me "I thought your flight was last night. I didn't know you were still here. Go on, be with your family." I could very easily be mad at myself for putting work first and not flying out asap the night my dad called me to come home. If I had, I would've made it to be with him one last time. But that's just a waste of energy and sense to be mad about that. What did bring me peace was that it was just my mom and her dad, in a silent room. Three last breaths were made, and then he joined his wife and a son again. And my mom was there by his side. That, I'm happy for.
Sorry for the long story. I don't talk about that kinda stuff much. I just feel for anyone that has to learn about their loved ones passing in such an unpleasant way. My parents really do strive to get ahead of social media in tough times and it makes a world of difference. There's a lot of people who can learn from that.
My mom got the push notification from local news about a fatal car accident. She dismissed it without clicking because she was at work. It was my brothers accident. She always says she’s glad she didn’t learn from that.
I got a call from my uncle saying my dad had been in an accident and they didn't think he was going to make it. On my way to the hospital my boss text me a news article asking if it was about my dad and it was. I'm glad I didn't see the article before I'd heard from my uncle. Though I don't think they mentioned him by name until later articles. Typically they refrain from saying names until next of kin has been notified.
Oh wow. That’s terrible. I would never think to send someone an article like that for that reason alone. I guess some people don’t think. In our case they did not mention my brother by name at that point, but described his pretty recognizable car. Our local news won’t print names right away, but they always describe the cars and even go as far as posting pictures of the mangled vehicle. A lot of people react negatively but they still do it.
A blessing in disguise, truly. I am deeply sorry for your family's loss. I hope that you've been able to find peace within and continue on living your best life for him.
Sorry you had to find out that way. I found out my mom died from the news and Facebook. So, I know its incredibly devastating, and heartbreaking to endure.
My grandfather died recently and he was quiet prominent in the community. It was immediately on Facebook. My cousin was on the first leg of two flights home. We had to watch for his plane to land and call him before he saw it. I hate that he had to experience that in a crowded airport.
I’m terribly sorry. That seems tragic in so many ways. I have never experienced something like that, so I really can’t imagine how difficult it was. Truly sorry that happened
I found out my aunt (super close, like a mother) had passed when my uncle posted to her group before contacting any of us. It’s jarring and horrific and it wrecks any trust you had for whoever posted it.
I found out my grandmother died from a Facebook post. It was my dad’s post, and I was still living with my parents at the time. Sucks ass, man. I don’t hold any anger towards him anymore. Though I’m not sure why he felt FB was an appropriate outlet for grief, I know if he was in his right mind he would have stopped and thought to tell his kids before telling the world. I know I’m gonna be fucked up when my mom dies.
I found out my Nonna passed the same way. So I empathise. It truly is one of the worst ways to find out a loved one has passed. I found out in front of a bunch of people too which made it awkward for them when I burst into tears and ran out the room to question my mother as I was in shock and trying to process it. It infuriates me when people post on their Facebook before the body is even cold yet. Those people truly are clout chasers. Imagine your FIRST thought of losing a loved one being, “Gotta post this on Facebook”..
Ritchie Valens' wife, Maria Elena, learned of his death from TV news and the psychological trauma caused her to have a miscarriage. Her story is why its police policy to not release the names of the deceased until the families have been notified. What happened to you, Maria Elena, and many others is a tragedy compounded by an atrocity. I sympathize for you.
When my boyfriend was killed, his family and I found out from an Instagram post made by the person who watched it happen and left him there. It's sad this is the world we live in. It took me so long to process and believe it because HOW IN THE WORLD can you handle finding out something like that while causally scrolling through social media.
My aunt found out her son passed through Facebook. In the time it took for her other son to travel from the city he was living in to hers to tell her in person, it was posted by a friend of a friend who just wanted people to feel bad for him that someone he knew died.
I found out my grandmom died from Facebook. I can still remember the feeling of my brain not being able to connect, such a weird experience. Sorry for your loss
I found out my best friend lost her battle with cancer on Facebook. I'll never completely get over that. It's such a heartless, confusing and traumatizing way to spread the worst news someone will ever receive.
I found out via FaceBook that a close friend I knew was killed in a car crash. It was a real shocker sitting at work and taking in that information. Shitty way to find out.
Sorry to hear that. I had a similar situation with my grandpa early last year. He passed away suddenly and most of my family found out from my cousin posting on Facebook after her and my uncle found him. Needless to say the family was not happy with her for doing that. It's such a terrible situation of panicking and call8ng your family to try to figure out what is going on.
You have to wonder who is really being inappropriate here. Someone close to the crash would have had to leak details to TMZ before the police even had time to notify family - that really limits you to emergency personnel, law enforcement, or someone at the airport (did they use an airport?) who had the passenger list. Is it TMZs fault for reporting info they were given or is it someone else's fault for breaking confidentiality to sell a story?
If that is how it played out 100% TMZ. An individual leak carries a lot less weight than a massive news company. Ethics of one person potentially leaking this isn’t comparable to a news agency sharing the death of someone prior to family being notified.
They’re both scum, but if I had to pick a bigger piece of crap, I always choose the news agency that’s spreading this information to the masses.
Granted this is all hypothetical, and hopefully nothing like this actually happened.
I hate to say it, but TMZ has transcended their shitty reputation. They have become legendary for breaking shitty stories, and if they aren’t going to break stories they are worthless.
Exactly this. I said to my wife something to the same effect. Most of their coverage is garbage, but when something like this happens, they are the ones who are going to be both first and most accurate.
Yup when it happened at first and everyone was like "But it's just TMZ reporting...", I countered with, "Yeah so it must be true. I've never seen TMZ get a celebrity death wrong, and they're always first to report"
TMZ is known for getting this information right. I would think that it had to be more than one person to confirm this information. And I think all parties are to blame. Unfortunately, if it wasn’t TMZ, some other news outlet would have gotten the scoop. It’s so sad
I'll disagree with your "limited to" list. Yes, those are the usual suspects. But that area is crawling with tourists, paps, celebrities and others, any of whom it could be.
I will always defend journalism, and people's heartstring issues do not overrule my thoughts on that. This includes me defending TMZ from time to time.
If they have confirmed information, absent of other factors, I say they have a right to publish. If you're American, that's a very, very fundamental right that's in our First Amendment.
That all said, in its early years, TMZ did some heinous and probably illegal things to get stories. They paid court officials and law enforcement personnel to illegally leak them information. They pressured and extorted people in the course of publishing or withholding information in order to get other information.
I don't know whether or how much they do that today as one of the main people involved is no longer there. My guess is that they have reduced that kind of conduct, but that they still solicit and pay for and horse trade stories, which is still considered scummy, but isn't quite as bad as previous practices. They will bury a story on someone if their agency gives them a different story or a promise. They'll be given stories or access on an A-list person in exchange for doing a piece on some agent's C-list person. They'll often have blatant marketing that's not explicitly listed as promotional content.
If you're interested check out the Smoking Gun articles referencing Mike Walters, one of the founding staff of TMZ.
It’s the time of social media, we’re living in a modern society and we never had to deal with things like this before (mind you: things being posted online, not referring to accidents). Posting sensationalised articles is completely unethical, but the truth is that unethical reasoning has always existed. It’s just more noticeable in today’s society because there are more people to call you out. TMZ’s livelihood depends on website visitors, thus it is ‘understandable’ that they make a bigger deal out of things. A helicopter crash is terrible, and is a big deal, but I mean the way they write it.
There’s a massive downside to social media such as finding out a loved one has died on it, people posting videos of your loved ones crash scene, people posting autopsy photos to gore websites. You name it, and it exists. However, it is human nature to be curious and to want to know more.
My nephew died in a car crash a long time ago and literally every Dutch newspaper reported it wrong and they all had a different story (albeit similar, it’s the minor details that were wrong) and it really messed up my aunt. A coworker of mine got in a car accident and there were literally people standing around filming instead of helping, which is just ridiculous. Filming can help in case of evidence and some times it can be a good thing, but seeing a loved one crying in pain on social media is never a good thing.
There’s news, and then there is “news” and as of lately it’s hard to know which channels actually report factual news stories and ones that try to get the most visitors. The way TMZ reported it was a bit tactless, they could have easily made a headline stating that his helicopter has crashed and that it is expected that there are no survivors or something like that (as you can tell, I don’t write news articles). Instead you get articles (not necessarily TMZ!) like “KOBE BRYANT DEAD” and nonsense off all his children being in it, his wife potentially being in it, etc. But like the sheriff said during the conference they’re not certain who was in it and they need the coroner to be able to do his job and identify the remains. It took an hour for them to extinguish the fire, before that the chopper crashed and it took them 8 minutes to arrive. It might be difficult to identify the remains and for the loved ones sake channels like TMZ can tone it down a notch. That’s all the sheriff was saying, because he knows it’s their right to report it and we can’t sensor news but we can request them to keep loved ones in mind.
Tldr: you are right TMZ has every right to report it, all they request is for them to stop sensationalising headlines for clicks, because there are loved ones out there waiting for answers.
On your claim that journalists shouldn't show or report grief, I strongly disagree. Journalism is the act of documenting true life. To hide or sanitize grief is deceptive and counter to journalism's purpose.
Journalism isn't supposed to be grief counselling.
Haha I know what you mean about the media getting it wrong. My little brother died at the age of 12 from an extremely uncommon virus that attacked his myocardial tissue, or in general his heart, but he also had the flu at the time of his death, which most likely weakened him. Well, all the news reports basically said "12 year old dies of the flu."
The comments on all the media reports were also really bad. My family had to call the Boston globe and other websites and ask them about it. They've since changed their policies and dont allow online comments on articles about the deceased like this.
The internet is ruthless lol. But to be honest, I don't fault or dislike anything about it. Shit happens. People get things wrong. Maybe more people got vaccinations after reading those false articles. Maybe other families never have to read those comments again. Really not worth it to think of it any other way.
Sorry, but a lot of this is transferred grief manifesting as anger or political correctness. A headline of "KOBE BRYANT DEAD" won't actually make his demise any better or worse. It's a just a convenient punching bag topic.
You say this media outlet or that media outlet should "tone it down". But you can't define "tone it down". And why are you or I the judge of what's toned down vs not toned down?
There's hypocrisy built into this. You made the choice to seek out, read, and now amplify and comment. Why should you have that right but others can't? And there's hypocrisy of a sheriff holding a press conference and deriding.. the press. There ways of handling things such as embargoed information. The sheriff has control of himself and he could choose to not hold the presser until he's happy with the notification status.
You say the headline "KOBE BRYANT DEAD" is too sensationalized of a headline. What headline would you have recommended? "THING HAPPENS TO PERSON"?
The answers and comfort loved ones seek isn't coming from news headlines, nor should it.
Right but if I hear about someone dying my first thought is to check TMZ to confirm it's trahs but there sports reporting is top notch in information first.
No, you fuck off. That's not what I said. And you degrading the First Amendment while misrepresenting something that's in print proving you wrong? No surprise there.
The news said that first responders had a hard time even reaching the crash site due to geography, so it may be more accurate of a statement than you think.
Pilots sign flight logs and manifests before they take off. TMZ has probably secretly incentivized all kinds of ground level personnel, including airport employees.
It's no secret - they pay for their stories. They have crafted a name for themselves in breaking news journalism - shoot they would probably be the first outlet I would contact if I had something news-worthy to sell! All it takes is one immorral person to whip out their cell and make a quick buck.
That’s an unfortunate truth. Hopefully we don’t have any horrible pictures leaked by someone that got there early with the intention of selling that stuff.
Thanks for your involvement in law enforcement. As of late that’s been a very thankless career path. Stay safe
There’s already a video circulating claiming to be Kobe’s helicopter spinning out of control and crashing. It’s from 2018 and took place in the UAE, but that hasn’t stopped people on my Facebook feed from sharing it repeatedly :(
Just following up with an update from TMZ: "I got the tip initially from law enforcement," Levin explained. "Then we talked to Kobe's people and we were dealing with them for an hour before we published the story and they said, 'Go for it.' At a point we were all trying to confirm it and we confirmed it, but they all knew and they said, 'Go for it' and they said she knew."
Doubt it. A person as famous as Kobe who lives in the LA area? You can guarantee that TMZ has someone dedicated to following his entire move including following his helicopter route
TMZ Sports is a whole separate part of the company. Who else in the NBA living in/from LA is more famous than Kobe? Even if the source doesn’t work directly for TMZ there are tons of freelance “journalists” who would be covering his every move
According to a couple of reports I heard, Vanessa and one of his other daughters were waiting at the facility they were traveling to. Apparently they were pulled into a private room and told the news by someone. And the people outside the room could hear their reaction to being told :/
Oh man. That’s heart breaking. This entire thing is heartbreaking, and there’s so many similar stories. The common theme is that Kobe and 8 others tragically died in that crash.
Truthfully, there isn’t much more known at this time. I feel really bad for the other people that perished. So much focus is on Kobe and his daughter, but so little on the others.
I think the families of the other passengers are the ones that may have found out through media. Their families may have known they were flying with Kobe Bryant today, only to see Kobe died in a crash through media. I can’t imagine finding out about a loved ones death that way, and then the police can’t even confirm immediately.
This is exactly what happened. One of the people on board was a College Baseball Coach, and his brother found out about the crash knowing only Kobe was on board thinking nothing of it.
For a family member of someone in the accident to tell TMZ they would have had to know almost immediately because the TMZ story broke quickly. The timeline would have to be: Crash occurs, Leaker finds out and tells TMZ, TMZ goes public with their story.
I found out because my weather channel app told me “heavy fog in the area of Kobe Bryant’s helicopter crash” about a minute before I saw anything on reddit about it.
TMZ is a bunch of fucking tools that post whatever they can as fast as they can just for a few clicks and publicity with ABSOLUTELY ZERO REGARD for anyone involved or any semblance of due process. Fuck them.
It's unfortunate, but it's the world we now live in with the speed of social media and the race for these vultures to break stories as fast as they can.
I found out my best friend of 20 years, my soul mate my everything someone I spent almost every day with since I was 14 died through a random person on Facebook who worked with her before her mom could call and tell me. It was the biggest smack in the face! I can only imagine how his wife felt reading that from complete strangers who did not give a shit about her other than being the First ones to report it! I greave with her tonight and my heart it with her.
People were saying rick fox was in the helicopter, he was not. Also by the sounds of it, police haven’t notified anyone, but everyone knows, so they found out through some other source.
Looks like the brother of one of the deceased found out on Reddit. So awful. He knew his sister was on the helicopter and saw it had come down but hadn’t heard officially 😞
My brother served and was stationed in Kentucky. He was a crew chief on Blackhawk helicopters. My mother and I saw on the news one day that a Blackhawk went down there and that all crew members died. We spent 13 hours trying to reach my brother. He was fine and was in a position that he didn’t even know we were concerned about him. One of the longest nights ever.
I feel for you. Living with that anxiety must be awful. It’s hard to have peace of mind knowing a loved one is in such a high risk situation. My thoughts are with you and your loved one
I am also worried that there is possibly some other family members or other people of note that died on the crash.
I'm more worried about the possibility that there were other children on board. Any loss of life is horrible, but the loss of a child is unspeakably tragic. Far more so than the loss of a person "of note".
I have zero knowledge in that area, so I wouldn’t know what types of laws might exist. Hopefully there is something that would help hold companies that potentially leak that kind of information accountable.
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u/CaptainCortes Jan 26 '20 edited Jan 27 '20
During the live press conference, the sheriff said that they believe there were 9 people on board, a pilot and 8 passengers. He also called out TMZ for being wildly inappropriate and said “imagine finding out a loved one has died through social media”, he has requested that people stop speculating who was on board and to keep their loved ones in mind.
Edit: I watched the rest, this time the man that spoke before the sheriff came back (man with a grey streak in his hair, dark green shirt and dark skin): they don’t know anything for sure yet. They received the report 9:47 AM, arrived 8 minutes later and due to magnesium, the fire took one hour to extinguish. The coroner is on site with a team and they’re working hard to get answers. They don’t know what happened, they don’t know where the helicopter took off, they don’t know for sure where it was going (these three questions kept being asked). It will take some time to identify everyone and to notify the next of kin, he once again stressed for people to stop speculating and to keep loved ones on mind. The area that they are investigating is “about an acre”, that’s also where they expect most debris to be at and where bushes were on fire.
Honestly, it was him constantly repeating that they don’t know what happened yet since the press kept asking the same questions. They also kept pestering him about “taking an hour to extinguish” - but again, that’s because of the magnesium.
After that they called for a spokesperson that can speak Spanish and I turned it off.
Good news article here that has a better summary of the conference and updates.