• Search Engine Journal, Tuesday, June 30, 2009 3:45 PM

Loren Baker points to recent events to squash doubts that real-time social media keeps people more informed about breaking news than traditional news outlets -- while search isn't always up to the challenge. When the news broke that Michael Jackson had died from cardiac arrest after being rushed to the hospital, celebrity Twitter streams and Facebook users had the news.

Google Search lagged in breaking news coverage -- and Microsoft's Bing "absolutely failed," Baker writes. He provides screen shots of search results after the first reports of Jackson's death: The first three listings in the query "michael Jackson " on Bing returned information on concert tickets, Wikipedia, and Michael Jackson News -- Yahoo Music, respectively.

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