Do you remember ? On June 25, 2009, Michael Jackson died.

2009. On June 25 in the evening, my cell phone vibrates at regular intervals: “Michael Jackson is dead? ! ? “My reflex, like everyone else that evening, is to turn on my television on BFMTV. Eight years after 9/11, the astonishment in the face of a looping image is still just as strong. In the case of this pop culture September 11, the images of an ambulance in front of a Los Angeles hospital replace those of the smoking Twin Towers.

In retrospect, what I remember from this event is the long period of vagueness around this supposed death. For several hours, only the people news site TMZ (still poorly known and very poorly regarded in France) announces with certainty the death of the singer at 44, after a heart attack. In France, the official confirmation of death occurs after midnight. AT 20 minutes, at that time, we have already finished the next day’s newspaper. It’s very annoying but there will only be a very small article to announce the information in the newspaper. In the same way, it will be necessary to wait for the second editions of the main French newspapers to see front pages on Michael Jackson. And like 20 minutess doesn’t appear on Saturdays and Sundays, I won’t be able to write an article for three days… For the music journalist that I am, it’s very frustrating.

The pace of the news

On Friday, June 26, 2009, I woke up to a world without Michael Jackson. Officially at the weekend, I still go to the editorial office of 20 minutes to start working on future articles around this disappearance. I arrive in a newsroom in full turmoil. Journalists from the site of 20 minutes have worked on the subject since the day before, multiplying articles in different formats, noting the emergence of memes and tributes of all kinds. While I was settling down to work on an article on the consequences of this death, the journalists of 20minutes.fr recorded a lipdub (it was the fashion) of the songs of the King of Pop in the editorial staff. Two contemporary tempos confront each other in music.

A few years later, the Web and print newsrooms of 20 minutes will merge to react rhythmically to the vagaries of current events. And, in 2017, we will test this organization during the death of Johnny Hallyday. But that’s another story, which we’ll tell you in a few days.