It was just about 2:45 on Sunday afternoon.
My family and I were on a Metro North train, the Hudson line, heading home after a weekend celebrating my daughter’s love of Broadway, when I looked at Twitter and saw a few people tweeting about Kobe Bryant, how they couldn’t believe it, how it couldn’t be true, how they hoped the news was wrong.
Then I saw the tweet from TMZ.
BREAKING: Kobe Bryant Has Died In A Helicopter Crash https://t.co/42oINV9ZUU
— TMZ (@TMZ) January 26, 2020
Since I was across the aisle from my wife, I texted her the link to the Tweet.
My wife — who is not a sports person, and who in fact is bored to naptime by basketball — gasped.
Over the next few minutes, we scrolled our respective Twitter feeds. We’ve had several conversations in the past about TMZ’s credibility as a news source, and how for all of the rightful ethical concerns about their newsgathering practices, for all of the gossip they print, on big stories like this, they’re usually right.
Then, a few minutes later, I saw a tweet from Woj confirming the news.
Kobe Bryant is among those dead in a helicopter crash outside Los Angeles, a source confirms to ESPN.
— Adrian Wojnarowski (@wojespn) January 26, 2020
At that point, I knew it was true.
Over the next few minutes, as the train pulled out of Grand Central Terminal, you could hear the murmurs start through the train, as the news was confirmed and as more people checked their phones and saw the news. Maybe 10 minutes into the drive, the conductor who was punching tickets said it out loud as he found out about Kobe Bryan’s death in a helicopter crash.
There are so many journalistic angles to this story. The aforementioned ethical practices of TMZ. The messiness of following breaking news on Twitter, how incorrect information is reported, spread, discredited, and corrected. What makes a credible source in Twitter journalism. The comparison between sports and news coverage of the story. The instant hagiography of Kobe and working his sexual assault accusation into the coverage. The use of social media as a public forum for grieving.
But part of me will always remember being on that Metro North train, pulling out of Grand Central up the Hudson River line, hearing the news trickle from row to row, seeing the news break in real time one person to another, a shared experience in an individualized age.