Reports of Anne Heche’s death came in waves – from Friday morning to Sunday evening, depending on the outlet – and caused some in the news industry to rethink their nuanced definitions of the word “dead” and, in some cases, to reconsider policies about whether to publish an obituary while the person is still on a ventilator.

Heche crashed her Mini Cooper into a Los Angeles home on August 5 and suffered severe burns when the car burst into flames. It took 59 firefighters more than an hour to extinguish the blaze, and Heche was taken to the hospital in critical condition.

At around 11 a.m. on Friday, TMZ was the first major media outlet to report on Heche’s death. In its obituary, the gossip site attributed her death to her representative. “Her representative told TMZ that Anne was ‘brain dead,’ and that is the definition of death under California law,” the site said.

In California, a person is actually considered dead when either their heart or brain stops functioning. However, life support machines can keep the heart beating and the lungs functioning, as was the case for Heche, who wanted to be an organ donor.

Most major news outlets, including the Los Angeles Times, have historically waited to declare a person “dead” and publish the obituary only after life support has been removed. In the Heche case, however, the media response showed signs of a growing divide in approaches.

Shortly after the TMZ story, People magazine posted that “Emmy Award-winning actress Anne Heche has died,” and later clarified in the article: “The family spokesperson confirmed to People that while Heche is legally dead under California law, her heart is still beating and life support has not been removed to give the OneLegacy Foundation sufficient time to find suitable recipients.”

While the Guardian and other media outlets published headlines announcing Heche’s death, the LA Times initially held off on declaring her “dead.” The Times reported that Heche was brain dead but remained on life support so her organs could be donated. The Times decided to wait to publish an obituary until later Friday after the family released a statement explaining Heche’s death. Times reporters reached Heche’s eldest son, Homer Laffoon, who said his mother had died, after which the obituary was published.

The New York Times published her obituary on Sunday after Heche was taken off life support. The Washington Post sent a push notification of Heche’s death on Sunday evening.

“We reported on developments as they happened, but out of respect for the family, we waited to publish an official obituary until her death was officially confirmed,” a New York Times spokesperson said in an email on Monday.

The fact that news organizations from around the world published patchy reports about Heche’s death throughout the weekend was disturbing, but not an isolated incident.

After rock musician Tom Petty suffered cardiac arrest at his Malibu home in 2017, there was public confusion as to whether he was alive or dead. Paramedics who rushed to Petty’s home in the early hours of one October morning were able to take his pulse, and the musician was placed on life support when he arrived at UCLA Medical Center.

However, Petty could not be resuscitated. According to TMZ, no brain activity was detectable when he arrived at the hospital. Petty “died peacefully,” said a statement from his family on Monday evening at 8:40 p.m. – but not before various media outlets, including Rolling Stone and Variety, had declared him dead during the day and then retracted or updated their reports. For hours, depending on the publication, the “American Girl” singer was either dead, in the hospital, “clinging to life” or “fighting for his life.”

In the case of Natasha Richardson, who died in March 2009 after hitting her head in a fall on a ski slope in Quebec, the actress was kept alive for two days after being declared brain dead. At the direction of her husband, Liam Neeson, Richardson was flown back to New York from Quebec, hospitalized, and eventually taken off life support after her family could gather around her.

Richardson’s heart, kidneys and liver went to other people. “She’s keeping three people alive right now. … It’s great and I think she would be very excited and pleased about it,” Neeson told CNN in 2014.

“As journalists, we have a lot of power, but life and death are not among them,” says Ari L. Goldman, a professor at Columbia Journalism School who teaches a course called “The Journalism of Death and Dying.” “I think we have to wait for the end of life and for life support to be turned off.”

Otherwise, Goldman said, too much power would be in the hands of news organizations, which might be inclined to rush to an outcome that may not yet have occurred.

“I’m a big believer in the idea that it’s not about getting it right first,” Goldman says. “And I think this is one of those situations where you have to get it right.”

Plus, an obituary shouldn’t be about a person’s death or how they died, Goldman adds. It should be about their life – how they lived it and what they accomplished.

This story originally appeared in the Los Angeles Times.