I don’t know about the rest of you, but I’m getting tired of hearing about Michael Jackson. Yes, I know he was the supposed "King of Pop", but does that really mean we should devote endless hours of prime time television and news shows to his passing? When did entertainment become the lead news item in this country? Yes, I know, the news media sold their souls many years ago to the god of profits, so of course they feed our countries sick desire to hear any piece of juicy gossip possible about celebrities. That’s why we don’t call them journalists any more, their just "the media".
I, along with everyone else, was shocked to hear of his death, but I got over it in about 5 minutes. I was never much of a fan and I never bought any of his albums or saw him in concert, so to me, he was just another entertainer that became warped by his own success into an eccentric and bizarre caricature. Worthy of a mention in the news of his passing. But instead, the day he died, NBC Nightly News with Brian Williams spent 20 of their 22 minutes discussing the death of Michael Jackson, part of which was to let us know there would be a full 2 hour prime time show later that night covering every speculative detail of the events of the day, plus endless coverage the next day on the morning programs. This in the middle of the crisis in Iran and other major news that got completely ignored.
The only news program that night that didn’t devote the bulk of their time to Michael Jackson was The News Hour with Jim Lehrer on PBS. Granted, they probably taped their show before the news of his death. They only stated that he had been rushed to the hospital as part of their opening news summary. Then they moved on to discuss a supreme court decision handed down earlier that day. But even if he had passed at the time, I don’t think their program would have been much different.
Beyond the news, there were endless shows spending countless hours picking over the still warm corpse of MJ as they clamored to feed the masses with any bit of information no matter how pointless or unfounded. Then it was on to rumors about the drugs MJ was possibly on and where he would have gotten them. Then onto the disposition of his children and the upcoming fight over his estate or lack of one depending on what time of day you tuned in.
Next it was the upcoming burial at neverland ranch and the plans to open it up as some sort of amusement park for his undying fans to come and pay their respects while the family reaped the profits. Of course, later the family denied any such plans. I’m sure the media had it right all along…don’t you?
Now it’s about the spectacle of his funeral including live coverage of the event with tickets being raffled off and then ultimately auctioned off for thousands of dollars.
For the sake of all of us, please just let it end. Bury him already….better yet, just cremate him and spread his ashes over Diana Ross and Elizabeth Taylor and be done with it.
I guess my point is there are so many pressing issues going on right now, health care reform, climate change legislation, etc, that the media does not cover well. Just imagine what we could do if the media spent as much time on these topics as they have on Michael Jackson. Think of the educated discussions we could have on these problems to help craft appropriate solutions. The problem is, that requires work on their part to investigate the issues and to read and understand what the proposed legislation says. That’s just too much work for them.
Instead we get our biased information from the talking heads on the 24 hour "news" channels who claim to be journalists but are no better than the talk radio idiots spinning their agenda out for the masses to consume. The bottom line is our media is ill-serving the public and until that changes or people take the initiative to educate themselves, we’ll continue to get bad legislation passed that will benefit the few.
The pendulum has swung far to the side of ignorance, the question is will it ever be able to swing back.
