I remember clearly the time when Princess Diana died (1997). For me, it was THE moment when I understood the impact of the Internet. I was randomly browsing the web during the night in Mexico, and suddenly I started to see websites (I think Yahoo and MSN at that time) showing the news. I went to sleep without giving it too much attention.
Next day, all the news in my country were mentioning the death as breaking news. My mind was blown over how I knew about this very important event the night before Mexico TV broke the news.
I had a similar experience. I saw news of her death online and assumed it was some sort of hoax. When I woke up the next morning and saw it on the (TV) news I had this weird “Holy shit! The internet was right!?” moment. It was very surreal. Up until that point I hadn’t even considered that the internet could be used for much beyond screwing around and chat rooms let alone that it could be a platform for breaking news!
> My mind was blown over how I knew about this very important event the night before Mexico TV broke the news.
I've had the opposite experience. It's clear that real-time news is detrimental, and it's better for reporting to wait a bit for facts to come in and analysis to be done.
Early reporting is vague, light on facts, disjointed, facts are hedged, etc. It's really quite worthless.
Next day, all the news in my country were mentioning the death as breaking news. My mind was blown over how I knew about this very important event the night before Mexico TV broke the news.
May the Queen rest in Peace.