MSNBC was one of the first accounts on my Twitter feed to break the news of Steve Jobs' death. I heard it first from my Marquette Tribune colleagues, but Twitter was one of the first places I checked to verify and get more information.

Within two hours, MSNBC had already published a memorial video and an article on the first wave of Jobs memorials (along with a Storify that, unlike the article, has been updated several times). 

The day after, the front page has four stories: an obituary; a Today Show tribute to his other start-up, Pixar; an invitation for readers to share their reaction and a video of Steve Wozniak's reaction. Their PhotoBlog also published a great collection of fans' tributes to Jobs. 

MSNBC can't be faulted for not moving on a breaking news story. We'll see how well they do in the coming days, when they can offer more elaborate journalism. Come back to this post, as it will be updated as MSNBC's coverage expands.

Update(2:50 p.m., 10/06/11): MSNBC has an interesting look at the Chinese reaction to Jobs' death. Apple products were popular in Asian markets and apparently, so was the man behind them.

Update(5:50 p.m.): The Westboro Baptist Church, known for its controversial signs and picketing, is going to protest Jobs' funeral. @MSNBC tweeted a the Today Show's take, focusing particularly on the irony that the announcement was sent on an iPhone.

The Westboro Baptist Church has targeted soldiers' funerals, which culminated in a Supreme Court ruling in March saying their right was constitutionally protected. In the past, they've gotten a lot of media coverage, for better or for worse. It'll be interesting to see what MSNBC does this time.

Westboro aside, MSNBC has also put a slideshow on the front page. Below that, there are links to the stories they've been able to publish less than 24 hours after the announcement.

Update(6:57 p.m.): Here's MSNBC's article with the rest of the Westboro Baptist Church picket details.

Update(11:02 a.m., 10/09/11): Over the past 24 hours, MSNBC has slowly removed its Steve Jobs' tributes and articles from the home page. It continues to update its memorial article, though.

Westboro hasn't been covered much since the article I mentioned Friday. A search on Google News suggests other outlets have passed on extra coverage for the time being, probably because of a lack of new information to publish.

The web is a very visual medium, and MSNBC uses this to great effect. They regularly feature photos on the homepage, have a PhotoBlog featuring photos, have an @msnbc_pictures Twitter and have a photo section. 

Their PhotoBlog is interesting. The posts are sometimes basic: a photo with a caption, like these photos about BASE jumpers. Sometimes they pair an AP photo with a wire story, like this post on the Lions' victory against the Cowboys. Occasionally, the photographer will comment on his photos, like on this Sept. 9th post. Many of the photos are from AP or Getty, but MSNBC's own photographers have photos featured too.

MSNBC also promotes its photos via a Twitter account, which has a smallish following of 9,000. While this isn't is only a fraction of the follower count of flagship accounts like @msnbc or @todayshow, it's a pretty healthy amount, considering MSNBC isn't known for its photos. (Image twitter accounts for National Geographic, the New York Times and the LA Times are all over 100,000 followers.) 

They also have a photo section on their site, which is a more visual version of their already photo-heavy home page:

From here visitors can look at some of their many slideshows, including this one on Afghanistan. That slideshow looks at Afghanistan in 172 pictures, each with a caption. It is much longer than the New York Times' "One in 8 Million" piece, especially when you count the separate slideshows for 2010 and 2009. That means it shares a lot more, but risks losing the viewer midway through. That may not be unintentional: the slideshow seems as though you could end at any point and get something out of it.

While MSNBC works hard to feature the photos themselves, its sections that feature only photography seem to be forgotten, leaving some of their efforts easily missed. 

Two months ago, MSNC and Storify announced they were partnering up. MSNBC's experiment in letting users pick the top stories, Breaking News, would allow users to turn the site's posts into Storifys. So you'd think MSNBC would be all over live-tweeting and curation, right?

No.

I've been able to find only two examples of live-tweeting by MSNBC. One is the ongoing live-tweeting of GOP debates. The latest was a week ago and covered the Florida debate. They've done others, but they can't really be compared because none of them have been curated. Pre-primary debates are transient things — have you watched any from 2007 lately? — but doing nothing to preserve them means no one can see them even when they're still relevant.

The second was by Richard Engel of the Nightly News. He was live-tweeting events from Libya on the ground in March. Like the debates, it hasn't been saved so it's been buried under everything else he's tweeted. But unlike the debates, people will want to read this months and even years later. Now we can't, unless we go to a lot of trouble. 

The only Storify MSNBC has done is a single story on the tsunami that hit Japan in March. It is interesting because it mostly ignores the staple of every other Storify I've read: tweets. Instead, it uses photos from the reporter's Facebook and includes quotes in the text field. 

What makes this strange is that MSNBC — like virtually every national or regional news outlet — has a major Twitter presence. Searching "MSNBC" under users gives a long list of results. Every program, anchor, correspondent and editor seems to have an account.

Apparently, my Digital Journalism II class has more experience curating on Storify than all of MSNBC. In live-tweeting, we're a close second. It's strange to think of, but interesting.