Following the death of Michael Jackson on Friday, the media was in a frenzy that had not been seen before. Twitter went down, Google thought they were under attack and traditional media struggled to keep up.
The most-widely replayed media stuff-up was the reporting that actor Jeff Goldblum had fell to his death while filming in New Zealand.
It’s an old nugget that had been used before but it got a re-run on Twitter and before we knew it, the Today Show’s increasingly leather wallet-looking Richard Wilkins was reporting it as though the NZ police had confirmed it. They didn’t check the facts and it wasn’t until a viewer emailed the show that they dismissed it as a hoax.
Today on The Colbert Report, Jeff Goldblum responds to Wilkins ever-exaggerated reports of his so-called demise.
| The Colbert Report | Mon – Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c | |||
| Jeff Goldblum Will Be Missed | ||||
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[...] in the same morbid fashion TV news programs prepare showreels in advance in case people die (The Richard Wilkins/Jeff Goldblum incident springs to [...]