I was one of several reporters and photographers dispatched to the breaking news. We all scurried to our respective vehicles. Reporters loaded into trucks, cars and vans. Photographers into LIVE trucks. Within minutes, a somewhat scattered convoy of white high-mileage vehicles was headed towards the scene.

The assignment desk didn’t provide much of a location. We were given a general area to go to. We all arrived, and quickly scattered, circling several blocks, scouting for HUGE breaking news.

After about ten minutes, the excitement began to wane. We’d come across each other’s cars as we circled the “scene”. We’d roll down the windows, shrug and keep circling. Nobody had found anything.

Moments later the desk called. “Finally,” I thought to myself, “a more precise location and an assignment of what to cover.”

“It’s a bust,” the assignment manager said. “Come on back.” My heart rate slowed, my shoulders slumped. Bummed, I turned the car around.

I was the last one back to the station, where the regrouping had already begun. Reporters and photographers were being placed on the relatively mundane daily assignments.

“I got great stuff,” I said excitedly, joking about the faux-breaking news. “What did you guys get?”

Rundowns that producers had worked all day to lay out were tossed out the window to make room for breaking news coverage. Reporters (myself included) were reassigned and asked to work double shifts. For the most part, news people are OK with all of this. In fact, despite the furloughs, and pay cuts, most of us stay in this business for high intensity moments brought by breaking news.

But there is a new dynamic in the coverage of breaking news, and it is being brought on by… you guessed it… social networking and the Internet.

During periods of national breaking news, local TV news outlets rely heavily on their network of national news affiliates. We look to the newsgathering resources of CNN, NBC, CBS, ABC and Fox to help us put together the facts.

Almost all of the national news outfits were quick to report Jackson’s hospitalization. The news spread like wildfire on blogs, Facebook and Twitter. Tens of thousands of messages were sent between friends.

To the best of my knowledge, TMZ.com was the first to report that Michael Jackson had died. At the same time, tradition news outlets like CNN and the Los Angeles Times couldn’t confirm it. It didn’t matter.

TMZ’s report spread across the Internet at lightning speed. Within moments, the news of Jackson’s death was essentially a common knowledge.

Immediately, news outlets were presented with a dilemma: Should continue reporting the facts that they know are true, waiting to independently confirm Jackson’s death? Or should they accept TMZ’s report as true, and report that Jackson has died?

Many of the traditional news outlets chose to wait for independent confirmation of Jackson’s death, a journalistically prudent decision. But, for every minute between TMZ’s breaking of the news and CNN’s confirmation, CNN became less relevant in the coverage. They were no longer part of the conversation.

News consumers had already moved on. Tributes were posted to Facebook. Tens of thousands of messages were streaming across Twitter. Jackson had died, no matter what CNN was reporting.

But hindsight is always 20/20. “What if TMZ had been wrong?” many journalists might ask. The answer to that question is uncertain.

The important lesson for journalists is this: We can no longer consider only reporting the facts. We should also consider the conversation. That conversation is a part of our coverage now. If we choose to ignore our audience, we’ll soon find that our audience is ignoring us.