It wasn't just the L.A. Times that didn't know where to place Michael Jackson at first. Jonathan Dobrer, a Friendly Fire blogger for the Daily News opinion pages, posts his reaction to observing the Jackson coverage:
I first learned of his death when a national cable network had a reporter, obviously unfamiliar with the Los Angeles area, report that Jackson had died in Bell. Knowing Bell, I was pretty confident that he would not, in fact, be caught dead in Bell. I guess she meant Bel Air(e). That too would have been wrong, but closer. Then I heard that he had collapsed in his rented mansion in Beverly Hills. Also not true. By evening the local TV coverage had it right, Holmby Hills, but even this morning the BBC was reporting that he died in Hollywood.
Dobrer is an author and teaches at American Jewish University.