TMZ was the first to report that basketball star Kobe Bryant was killed in a helicopter crash in California.

The TMZ report had media in LA and across the country scrambling to try and confirm.

LA TV stations were careful before reporting the story. It was one of those stories in which being right was more important than being first.

For hours yesterday, the reports said that 5 people died in the crash, the number was later upped to 9 people, including Bryant’s teenage daughter.

The LA Times dropped the paywall to let people read their coverage of the tragedy. The Times was out front with their coverage as TV stations were trying to match the paper’s coverage.

LA TV stations scrambled to beef up their weekend reporting staff and offered up breaking news coverage. Main Anchors replaced the weekend crew as the special breaking news coverage continued.

The breaking news feed on the KCBS website showed which story was taking over the news cycle:

While most of the media were reserved in their coverage and looked for confirmation, before reporting, there was and always will be those that want to be first and then of course are wrong.

Like this ABC Good Morning America Producer:

This “scoop” by ABC turned out to be false as it was learned that Bryant’s daughter Gianna was one of those killed in the crash.

The LA Sheriff’s office decided to attack the media and unfairly called out the press for trying to cover the breaking news.

In this case, most of the media made sure stories were confirmed before reporting the facts. The media has a job to do and that is to deliver the news. Word is that Bryant’s wife and much of his family knew the sad news shortly after the crash.

This appears to be the case of a Sherrif taking an undeserved shot at the media, which seems to be the thing to do these days.

LA media will be busy for days and weeks covering the memorials and follow up stories to such a sad story.

As for the national media, this is just one more story in a time when the big story changes so quickly it will make your head spin.