Media Overkill

It seems to me that North American media (and perhaps this is true of media around the world) like to latch onto certain stories - most of which seem to be irrelevant - and analyze them to DEATH. Two recent stories which come to mind are the South Carolina governor's infidelity with an Argentine woman, and of course, the big story that has been plastered all over the news: the death of Michael Jackson.

A few things come to mind with repect to this story. First of all, does CNN (and, shamefully, the CBC) have to analyze his death from EVERY angle? Do they have to talk to the guy who may or may not have seen him taking a crap hours before he died? Or bring in legal experts to dissect his will, telling us who was left out and who's going to cash in? But most importantly, why are all these people diefying a man who was known to molest little boys, and who got away with it, avoiding imprisonment? What gives??? Seriously people. WTF???

It seems to me that we LOVE diefying people. If you've been to a wedding or two, you'll always hear people in the wedding party giving speeches like, "She is so caring, and has the biggest heart. Jane and John are so right for each other!" Or when we hear of a murder in the news, we always hear friends and family describing that person as "full of life" or "was so caring and considerate". Sure, at weddings we'll never hear (or at least *should* never hear) andything negative about the bride and groom. And friends and family of murder victims want the best qualities of their loved ones to be remembered as part of their legacy. I get it. But we're all human underneath our PR-friendly exteriors and we all have skeletons. And not only was Michael Jackson no exception, he should NOT be put on this insanely high pedestal that people from around the world have erected for him.

Not only is it insulting to the little boys he victimized, this is also bad reporting. Just because he died doesn't make him a saint. Would we diefy evil assholes like Pinochet, Mussolini, or Franco? They terrorized countless people. Okay, so that's probably an unfair comparison, but hopefully you see my point.

Wasting this much media coverage on MJ is not only shameful, it's also bad journalism. There is so much crap going on in this world, most of which is a hell of a lot more relevant than who's going to be at MJ's memorial. Most of us are completely unaware of the shady dealings of our own country's politicians, and of the attrocities going on elsewhere in the world because our media choose to focus all of their energy on stupid stories. It's time that the media did their jobs and reported on REAL news. Otherwise, how are they any better than the state-controlled media of theocracies and dictatorships?
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