Perhaps it’s because I was sitting in RyersOnline’s newsroom when the news broke, but it occurs to me that the death of Australian actor Heath Ledger on Tuesday was a tragedy reported in the digital age.

From the speed between the time Ledger was pronounced dead (reported to be 3:36 p.m.), to the first online posting (celebrity gossip site tmz.com was the first to post the news at 4:20 p.m.), to the web of text messages, cell phone calls and Facebook messages breaking the news to friends, I think the speed and the intensity with which the news of his death was reported was unprecedented.

It’s not that Ledger’s death is more important than the death of any other cultural figure in recent years, but when you combine the popularity of social networking technology with the fact that the Ledger’s fan base, young people - and especially young women, are some of the largest users of this technology, I think that news, and especially this kind of celebrity gossip that people can’t seem to get enough of, is just going to travel faster and more widely than ever before.

It made me think about the role of the traditional media as an initial source of news. Years ago, people wouldn’t have known about Ledger’s death until they picked up their newspaper the next morning, if not even later.

On Tuesday, I received two text messages, a Facebook message and two phone calls telling me of Ledger’s death, then spent an hour that evening reading the gossipy minutiae on the internet. Whatever information was provided in Wednesday morning’s newspaper seemed inconsequential and old.

Newspapers and other traditional media need to change their focus from breaking news to publishing more in-depth analysis of news events, because the youth of today are on top of the news like never before, now they just need to know why it happened.