Opinion: tmz breaking kobe bryant’s death showed no sensitivity

Only one hour following the devastating helicopter crash that killed Kobe Bryant and eight others, TMZ broke the news. 

Eight little words splashed across the popular gossip magazine read “KOBE BRYANT DIES  IN HELICOPTER CRASH IN CALABASAS…” These words impacted the lives of millions, but more importantly, they changed the lives of those who never should have had to read that headline — Kobe and Gigi Bryant’s family.

Vanessa Bryant and her three daughters, Natalia, Bianka and Capri, learned of the tragic death of their family not through the police, but through a tabloid news website. They learned of their loss at the same time as the rest of the world, before the authorities confirmed the identities of the deceased.

TMZ took away the family’s time to process and grieve before the public found out. They took away the Bryants’ opportunity to mourn in private before the press bombarded the family and their representatives with questions and requests for statements. The mess TMZ made of the Bryant’s lives is disgusting. 

The New York Post reported that Los Angeles County Sheriff Alex Villaneuva berated the celebrity news outlet, calling the quick release of their article “wholly inappropriate.”

Los Angeles County Undersheriff Tim Murakami tweeted asking for time to notify the loved ones of the deceased before releasing the information to the public. Murakami wrote that it is “very cold to hear of the loss via media.”

In addition to the rebukes from the Los Angeles County Sheriff and Undersheriff, as of Feb. 5, over 603,000 people signed a petition to cancel TMZ for their quick draw on the story, and the numbers are still growing.

The founder of TMZ, Harvey Levin, stated in an interview with Los Angeles radio station KNX’s “In-Depth” that he talked to “Kobe’s people” and received permission to report on Kobe Bryant’s death. Levin defended his news outlet and claimed that he was in contact with Kobe’s representatives for an hour before the story’s release. 

Something obviously doesn’t quite add up. Kobe’s representatives’ first responsibility is Kobe Bryant and his family. If they knew about his death, wouldn’t they first go to his family? Why would representatives put a celebrity news outlet over the respect for their clients?

The answer — they wouldn’t.

Levin’s story holds no water, yet no one from Kobe Bryant’s representative team has come forward to offer any statement on the matter, contradictory or otherwise. To make matters worse, when questioned about the lack of communication between TMZ and the other families, Levin admitted that it was “a fair point” and those families may have found out through TMZ.

The facts surrounding the release of TMZ’s article are shady at best and completely false at worst. What TMZ did was still inexcusable, and the outlet is on thin ice both with officials and the general populace. The news outlet must be careful to report everything by-the-book and take better care of stories that impact distraught family members.

Sobonsky is an opinion writer. Follow her on Twitter.