James Joyner thinks the coverage of MJ’s death is over the top, and I completely agree. I will, however, note that while the MJ coverage is over the top, it still pales in comparison to the three day self-absorbed wankfest that followed Tim Russert’s death.
Also, via Michael Calderone, we learn that Meet the Press is bleeding out, losing close to a half million viewers since MC Rove’s dance partner took over from the late Russert. Clearly the bizarre strategy of packing every show with right-wing pundits and spewing right-wing talking points immediately following an election where the country told the Republican party to go to hell is paying dividends. Clearly what Meet the Press needs is more appearances by President Gingrich.
*** Update ***
This week’s guests- Mitt Romney and Lindsey Graham. Atta’ boy, Stretch. You can lose another half million if you try.
WereBear
I have to agree– the three day tribute to Russert set a benchmark I hope will not be surpassed. I think Princess Di got a lot, but I didn’t really pay attention, either.
Remember, they decide what is news!
Max Peck
Downloading a Michael Jackson cover of ‘Ain’t No Sunshine’ last night. I don’t recommend it. His voice isn’t right for the song and it just doesn’t ring right for a 7 year old to be singing this song.
Anyway…..
handy
Keeping your access to the inner circles of the D.C. elite has its prices.
JWeidner
I’m going to go out on a limb here and predict that when all is said and done, the coverage of MJ’s death is going to make Russert’s look like it was a half-hour prime time special.
Mike E
Village ‘death throes’
neill
Newt Gingrich — the future of the Republican Party! Yahoo!
Lyle4
Overdoing it? He’s one of the most famous people EVER, and he hasn’t even been dead a whole day. Please.
laxel
Maybe they could draft Joe The Plumber or something… that’d fix em.
4tehlulz
@JWeidner: Considering that drugs may be involved, and that only God’s probate attorney knows the state of his estate, I’d say that will be an understatement.
blahblahblah
I can’t watch any of the Sunday shows any longer. I’d rather just watch C-SPAN’s Washington Journal, which pleasantly mixes nutcase callers with crass ‘inside(r)-the-belt(way)-and-down-the-crotch(grab)’ pundits. Wait. I think I’m mixing a bit of MJ in there too. And since when did the term ‘MJ’ get taken over by that two-bit song ‘n dancester?
passerby
David Gregory was the wrong choice and if they had been reading Balloon Juice, they’d have known that. Instead, they kept their own council and now MTP is a sinking ship.
Live and learn NBC.
comrade scott's agenda of rage
The MJ coverage is excessive….and perfect for what TV can do. Make your own judgements as to whether that’s good or bad.
MTB bleeding like a stuck pig? Fine. Go away, you won’t be missed.
Common Sense
They’ll settle for Sunday Morning Joe.
Zifnab
In all fairness, it’s barely day 2. This combined with the fact that we aren’t in a slow news cycle and it’s a Friday so everyone was going to be phoning it in anyway, I think you’re asking a bit much from a media organ already glutted by Iran, health care, and a double sex scandal.
KRK
Speaking of Russert, did folks see Froomkin’s last Washington Post column today?
Death By Mosquito Truck
What about Reagan? THAT was over the top. I think round the clock cable news coverage has a tendency to overdo things.
Caladan
Sunday 6/28/09 MTP guests include Gov Mitt Romney and Sen Lindsey Graham.
Sounds like a fascinating hour of Republican BS.
MattF
Wingers on MTP isn’t about politics, it’s about m-o-n-e-y. Right-wing hackery is the wave of the future as far as network TV executives are concerned. They look at radio and think “Hey, I want some of that.” Who’s to say they’re wrong? When your audience is tracking towards zero, you grab what you can.
And complaining on blogs isn’t going to change their minds– as far as they’re concerned, the intertubes thing is a lot of losers sitting in their basements wearing bunny slippers.
bayville
David Gregory is the host of Meet the Press?
I thought Gingrich and McCain were the official Co-Hosts.
My bad.
GuyFromOhio
@Death By Mosquito Truck:
Those hours don’t fill themselves. And the instant-now immediacy of the internet has only worsened the gibbering.
Maybe it’s the advent of the nice weather, but the ijit box has been pretty much off lately, with the exception of some drunken XCite Truck driving on the Wii.
jl
Yeah, well, Russert had the knack for making it look like he was being not completely biased. Gregory, not so much. People get tired of ignorant, fatuous, skeazy, unfair, biased and hypocritical slanted tendentious leading questions. Constant one-sided two-face does not go down well with anyone, even… the public.
And then there is a ass-kissing… the endless ass-kissing… of favored parties.
Of course, it is the public’s fault that it dislikes nonstop manipulation by useless unsmart, unskilled tools. Obviously it is some new problem with the U.S. public, to be diagnosed by the putrid corporate press.
JoyceH
The media feeding frenzy that I found the most puzzling was the weeks-(months?)-long obsession with Anna Nicole Smith. She was one of those peculiar people who are famous simply for being famous – Jackson at least had an entertainment career that reached some monumental heights and that covered decades.
Joe Max
All I can possibly think of is the Lords of the Talking Heads think that “well, the country has turned left, so it’s our responsibility to provide the alternative view!”
Funny how that wasn’t operative during 8 years of Chimpy McFlightsuit.
Naw, Occam’s Razor says they’re just corporate shills.
Comrade Stuck
Up this Sunday, the Mittster and Huckleberry Graham. No doubt to remind us Obama is Godzilla out to destroy America.
Also Axelrod, who will be asked if Obama has any remorse for murdering an innocent fly on national teevee., then if having an EXOTIC Luau was politically smart when American babies are starving in the street. Should be informative.
Laura W
Wait till Larry King dies!
(Or dies all the way.)
Political Pragmatist
I agree that the Sunday talk shows–the MSM as a whole–is making a huge mistake by continually letting the right wing blowhard ideological failures hog the microphone. People are tuning them out and turning off the MSM.
When the main hard questions come from Obama’s left, then times have changed?
Why listen to the malarkey from the right? Not like they had success before, so why do they have any credibility now?
http://www.politicalpragmatist.com
Napoleon
@KRK:
The best part of that was sticking it to that wanker Woodward.
Comrade Dread
Yeah, overdoing it. It’s been one 24 hour long obit, so far.
I mean, at some point, until new information is available, there’s no point in beating the dead horse in a fine paste.
Death By Mosquito Truck
@Laura W:
lmfao
Keith
Wait, we haven’t found out yet if concert organizers will have one of MJ’s kids perform the comeback tour in his place.
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
You mean there are still people who watch, whazzat thing called again, T-e-l-e-vision? For anything besides sporting events? That is sooooo 20th Century.
The Grand Panjandrum
John these NBC numbnuts screwed the pooch on this one. Look Joe the Plumber is back in the news. If they were going to go with Right Wing nothingness the least they could do would be to bring us the awesome!
Now, who wouldn’t tune in EVERY Sunday to watch that! Jesus, I know I would!
Fencedude
@Laura W:
How will we be able to tell?
dr. luba
I happened to be in the UK when Di died. It was truly amazing–she went, overnight, from a skank that everyone in the press was slagging to Mother Theresa’s doppelganger. Weird. The non-stop coverage, absence of anything else in the news, piles of plastic wrapped flowers in each town square (it looked like piles of garbage) and disruption of the Scottish ferry schedules were mind-numbing.
That being said, nothing has ever come close to the Reagan wankfest.
Di passing away so young had all the makings of a tragedy, so I can kind of understand the outpouring of grief. But Reagan was ancient and suffering from Alzheimer’s–his death was timely and a release. Celebrate his life and works, if you’re of that bent, but grief and shock at his death? Over the top!
JoeF
MJ was a world renowned entertainer who sold something like 800 million albums, rescued the popular music industry in the 80s, spent 4 decades as a part of pop culture, basically invented the idea of the music video as a creative outlet and not just a goofy performance piece, and lived one of the most publicly debated lives ever, including a bunch of scandals. And after all that, and years away from the spotlight, he was about to stage a series of comeback shows in London that were all expected to sell out – all 50 of them. Oh, yeah. He also generously supported 39 different charities, co-wrote We Are The World…etc, etc, etc. It goes on and on.
The idea that his death would be seen as a minor story is insane. The idea that Tim Russert deserves more of a tribute is even more insane. Damn near anyone who listened to music any time in the last 40 years either loves him or loves people influenced heavily by him.
Indylib
OT But this from TPM
grr-arrrggh crappy blockquoting feature
The Grand Panjandrum
I really love comment moderation. It keeps me from writing anything over the top and having any regrets. I guess it keeps all the pro-NAMBLA spam out.
Zifnab
@Death By Mosquito Truck:
ORLY?!
@dr. luba:
I honestly missed that by a country mile. Maybe it was the fact that he died right around finals and I wasn’t allowed to care about anything else.
Thomas Levenson
Not just MTP. Check out this week’s line up for CNN’s “State of the Union.” I hate the show just for its name; never watch Sunday morning anyway, but whisky tango foxtrot with this crew: en. Ray Odierno; Gov. Tim Pawlenty (R-MN); Senate candidate Rob Portman (R-OH) and gubernatorial candidate John Kasich (R-OH).
Odierno is a serving officer, hence formally w/o political affiliation. Everyone else…
I know MSM. I worked in MSM. Let me tell you Villagers, you are no M worth bothering with.
BDeevDad
Sunday talk shows now remind me of the Sportsreporters on ESPN where they are obsessed with the New York and Boston teams as opposed to inside Washington opinion which has no basis in reality. Unless a celebrity athlete/politician scandal hits than its a pile on.
Death By Mosquito Truck
Wrong thread.
Thomas Levenson
Also — I don’t care how big a star Michael Jackson was. I remember him too; I’m exactly his age, so the Jackson Family, then the Jackson 5, then all the iterations of that sad man’s career are part of my timeline.
Memory; connection from song to one’s own life back to the performer; sorrow at the thought of one more virtual companion of my youth gone — that’s all there.
But Michael Jackson is just one more man whom I’ve never met. I regret his passing, wish he’d had a less miserable end, all that…but real mourning is something I’ve had to do, and I’m damned if I will pretend to that kind of deep emotional response for someone whose actual presence in my life came in the form of a dozen or so songs and videos.
Which is why I can’t stand, and mostly don’t look at the paroxysms of grief being played out in front of, and perhaps for the cameras. I don’t mind if other folks feel otherwise, of course…I just have no idea why some strangers merit such explosions of empathy, whilst others shrink into lines of agate type.
Calouste
Well, Michael Jackson was a commoner, not one of the members of the Washington aristocracy like Russert. The mere thought that such undeserving people actually get attention. Pah!
Add to that that journalists in general are a very self-absorbed clique, who feel they have some kind of higher calling, that they are some kind of special caste if you like, and you get that kind of over attention to one of their own.
I have seen other examples of that, for example the BBC spending the first half of a 30 minute news bulletin on the fact that they got a new director. For me that was in the who-give-a-shit column.
Or a newspaper that every year published an article about how many journalists had died in the line of duty on the frontpage. Not something should be ignored, but you know, page 5 or page 7 would be the appropriate location. Like where they would put reports about how many firefighters had died in the line of duty.
LondonLee
@Max Peck:
He was 14 when he recorded ‘Ain’t No Sunshine’ and it’s beautiful, better than Bill Withers’ version.
Thomas Levenson
And last: forgive my unearned use of military-speak in the “whiskey tango foxtrot” affectation above. It’s just that when I read a commenter on some thread somewhere on the intertubes (TPM, maybe?) allow as Gov. Sandford had put the “tango” in Whiskey Tango Foxtrot, it was a coke-through-the-nose moment…and what passed above is homage.
gwangung
Jackson’s getting all this display precisely BECAUSE he was a freak. If he somehow managed to have a normal life, he’d never would have gotten this outpouring. (For example, Stevie Wonder, MJ’s superior as a musician, though inferior as a performer, would NEVER rate this kind of emo outpouring…)
syl
I don’t necessarily agree that the Michael Jackson coverage has been over the top, at least within the construct of modern tv news. He was almost certainly one of the top 3 if not the most famous person in the entire world from at least Thriller in 1982 until Dangerous in 1991 and probably for a few years past that. Thriller has sold more than 100 million copies, more than double the number two all-time best seller (Back in Black). His music star has faded, but he’s done enough crazy things to keep himself in the news. Throw in the fact that his death was untimely and that you can get quotes from his famous and not-so-famous relatives, of course there’s going to be a lot of coverage.
Comparing him to Russert is actually pretty illustrative. Even though Russert was hosting a national news program at the time of his death, I’d be shocked if Russert’s name would have been recognized by more than 50% of America in the days before he died and frankly would expect it to be below 25%. Even fewer people could pick him out of a line up.
Meanwhile, not only would 90% of people recognize Michael Jackson’s name and face, most of them could tell you his most famous dance and name at least five of his songs and two of his siblings even though he hasn’t released an album in almost ten years.
I’m not really big on the weird public eulogy thing that’s developed, but it seems that it’s the standard M.O. now. Based on their respective fame, Michael Jackson’s public eulogy would have to last until about 2015 to be as laughably over the top as Russert’s was.
Mr Furious
What’s with the MTP and other Sunday morning shows, anyway? It’s not like like they are booking Righties to balance against other politicians on the tube, at this point they are booking ALL righties to balance against the whole damn country.
Nellcote
slightly OT re ratings: Obama’s Nightline portion of his healthcare promo beat Letterman & Leno in the ratings. I’m pleasantly surprised. I wonder what the ratings would have been if it was on at 8 instead of 10pm.
re Sunday shows: Fareed Zakaria’s show on CNN is generally worth your time.
Comrade Kevin
MSNBC’s coverage yesterday afternoon was horrible. I would occasionally turn the channel on , and fully expected to see a white Ford Bronco slowly driving down a freeway at some point.
Mr Furious
NBC learn? Hell, we’re lucky NBC didn’t give that hour to Leno, too.
BombIranForChrist
So here is my question.
Why does Meet the Press do this? I mean, their thinking seems to be this:
When a Republican is in power, you have to have a lot of Republicans, because they are in power.
When a Democrat is in power, you have to have a lot of Republicans, to act as a counter to the Democrat in power.
Is this their thinking?
Do they hate success?
Sometimes I am fooled into thinking that people who make a lot of money must somehow be smarter than me, but no … dumb people can make a lot of money too. It just tends to dry up a little quicker.
DougJ
Wait til one of Michael’s kids gets his own tv gig.
joe from Lowell
David Gregory showed some real stones as a White House correspondent, and Chuck Todd showed some real chops as a political commentator.
They both stink to high heaven at their current jobs. They should switch places.
joe from Lowell
I watched – did imagine, watched – as Keith Olbermann provided voiceover of the feed from the helicopter that followed the coroner’s van on the way to the medical examiner’s office.
Comrade Kevin
@joe from Lowell:
Ugh, I didn’t see that. The last time I briefly turned it on, I saw that their BREAKING NEWS was that the Coroner was going to pick up his body and take it to the morgue. That was enough for me.
Comrade Stuck
@joe from Lowell:
The kind of car chases that turn out well. Sort of.
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
They are enjoying success if you understand their most important objective, which is to catapult propaganda for the dominant ideology.
The reason they seem so pathetically out of touch and clueless right now is that the press lags behind the public by 10+ years regarding what exactly the dominant ideology is. Ronnie Roo still rules their world, and meanwhile outside their little bubble the rest of the country has in large measure swung the other direction, but this is a recent development. By about 2020 or so the DC press will finally catch up with the mood of the country as it is today, if Obama and co. can put together enough of a lasting coalition to set their stamp on our times the way RR did.
Paraphrasing Max Planck’s epigraph about scientific advances, the 4th Estate makes progress one funeral at a time.
Mike G
Jackson has been a major entertainment figure for four decades. You’d expect his untimely death at a relatively young age to receive major coverage. Same with Di. Neither meant much to me, but I could understand why it was considered an event of major interest and importance from a pop-cultural perspective.
Time Russert was a fat, establishment-whoring plastic TV journamalist of no consequence to American culture, only to the self-important incestuous Washington journamalist culture, so selfabsorbed that they determined the whole country should be interested in it. It’s as if a local TV anchor died, so the station subjected their viewers to three days of nonstop hagiographic tributes.
But for undeserved over-coverage, nothing in my lifetime beats the OJ “trial of the century” (so much for that trivial stuff they adjudicated at Nuremberg in 1945). Simpson was a has-been football star and minor actor who otherwise wouldn’t have attracted much media attention for anything.
Da Bomb
I am not shocked by all of the coverage. You can’t deny the man’s influence on the whole music industry.
I mean people in Budapest are upset over his death. Budapest! That’s wild.
From what I understand, Elvis’s death was treated very similarily. I mean what if Elvis died today? How crazy would people react.
As for MTP, it has been sucking for a long time.
Fencedude
@Da Bomb:
Bah, everyone knows that Elvis isn’t dead.
burnspbesq
Michael who?
Coltrane died at age 39. That was a tragedy, and an incalcuable loss.
Jackson had his run. He hasn’t done shit in at least 10 years. His death is a tragedy, but it’s not a huge loss in cultural terms.
Laura W
@dr. luba:
And recall that Mother Theresa died just 5 days after Di?
I had just arrived at a 10-day “Dark Side” retreat in the AZ desert (not vampires, per se…Jungian shadow work and the like, although we did watch “The Hunger” one night..) and man oh man did we have juicy material to work with, what with the Di Projection Mania that swept the planet and then Mother T.
Talk about your synchronicity.
ricky
The wankfest to which you refer was limited to NBC.
Wait until ABC covers the death of its chief political correspondent, M. Mouse.
ricky
Industry is the key word here. Name one musical contribution Jackson made that has lasted beyond the MTV playlist change.
Matthew Hooper
Dude. Over the top? With all the nonsense coming out about his doctor, medications, mysterious 911 calls…
we’ve barely even warmed up the media machine. I’m going to have to make a point of turing off ET after the evening news lest I get violently nauseous.
Ed in NJ
I don’t think there is really any big mystery as to why the Sunday shows mostly lean right. The audience leans right. That’s who they are programming to. What’s silly is the rationale the shows give. Gregory’s decreased ratings reflect that he is a tool and people don’t want to watch him.
abo gato
Okay, I want to lighten things up a bit…..got this at TBogg and I haven’t laughed so much in a long time. Triumph the Insult Dog does the MJ trial.
hoo boy…..
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x17y9f_triumph-and-themichael-jackson-tria_fun
different church-lady
Well now wait a minute, the MJ coverage does not nearly “pale” in comparison — can anyone seriously claim there was more Russert coverage than there is MJ coverage?
I think what you mean is that the proportions are all wrong: the amount of Russert hagiography was, say 15 times bigger than the man was worth, while the MJ coverage (while much, much, much greater in terms of sheer volume) is only, say, 4 times bigger.
Betsy
Eh, I don’t know. Maybe I’m just grading on a curve (the curve being the sensationalistic celebrity coverage of the last 10-15 years) but it doesn’t seem any more over the top than I would have expected. I mean, he was (arguably) the most famous performer of the twentieth century. He had consistently had hits on the charts from the late-60s through the mid-90s. I really can’t imagine that a celebrity this big, who died unexpectedly at a relatively young age, would receive anything other than saturation coverage.
AhabTRuler
I would agree, although it has only but begun. We are going to see a great many more clowns in this circus before the guys come round to sweep up the elephant shit.
Maus
And this is why Bill Oreilly still has a career, ladies and gentlemen.
JK
When the 3 network newscasts allow themselves to be completely overtaken by coverage of the deaths of Michael Jackson and Farrah Fawcett, I’d say it’s too much.
Pointing out that coverage of Russert was also over the top, doesn’t get the MSM off the hook in my book.
Despite one’s feelings about Jackson and Fawcett, we still have a fucked up economy, turmoil in Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and threats from North Korea. I don’t give the MSM a pass for obsessing over Jackson and Fawcett. It was a flagrant dereliction of duty by CNN, MSNBC, and the network newscasts and they should be ashamed of themselves.
Mike in NC
Arggh! Thou shalt not speak ill of Saint Ronnie (blessed be his name). Seriously, remember when the Repubs were pushing to put his face on the dime and try to squeeze it onto Mount Rushmore? That’s some Cult of Personality.
Wile E. Quixote
@burnspbesq
And the winner of the award for “Most Outstanding bit of jazz wankery” is burnspbesq. Now if you could somehow work Miles Davis into the post, and mention that this year is the 50th anniversary of A Kind of Blue you would be elevated to the rank of überjazzwanker.
Jazz sucks, if there was ever a genre of music designed for untalented, one-musical-trick-pony hacks to make money in then jazz is it. Most self-styled jazz musicians have no more talent than any member of a corporate teen pop band or any hair band bassist and most jazz performances are so half-assed that you have difficulty telling when the sound checks and tune-ups end and the show begins. What jazz does have is marketing. Jazz has legions of fans, mostly tweedy old barf mats and pretentious wankers, who are convinced that because they listen to jazz and can drop MIles Davis or John Coltrane’s (Yes, Coltrane did have a first name) that they’re like, I dunno, really cool hepcats or something. I don’t know, but Jello Biafra had them down cold when he wrote:
Death By Mosquito Truck
@Mike in NC:
I still remember where I was when Reagan fell asleep talking to the Pope.
Michael Carpet
Does anyone watch MTP anymore? Russert was awful and smarmy; Gregory’s a joke; and having winger guests at 4:1 over liberals makes for a wankfest. You are better off reading the paper on Sunday morning, if you still have one.
And Ed in NJ, calling Gregory a “tool” is unfair to the equipment in my shop.
Eric K
Three words:
Anna Nicole Smith.
The press has a logn way to go before egtting anywhere near the disprortionate level of covergae achieved then.
Mike in NC
Dumb blondes with big boobs: nothin’ else comes close for cable TV!
we can be heroes
Ian Penman on MJ:
http://www.rocksbackpages.com/article.html?ArticleID=4305
American figures often disappear into notoriety: Howard Hughes adrift, aliens unseen, Elvis undead, Nixon reborn. Reclusivity sets up a whirlpool effect on our attention: we need to know what is going on behind the screen door. Michael is an autopsic figure: just as in Greek mythology the body of the fallen idol would be disseminated over the hills, we too have need of illustrious corpses. Michael is like a character out of Poe, a figure suspended between life and death: Peter Pan crossed with Freddie Kruger. (Or, for buffs – he is like the little half-caste girl in Douglas Sirk’s Imitation of Life, who grows up not knowing whether she is – or how to be – definitively black or white, and chooses a showbiz entry into the latter world over the former. I picture Michael running this movie over and over at night, alone in his Citizen Kane’s castle…)
His stalled adolescence – and our obsession with it: its body, its truth, its body of truth – is a symptom which says something grimly pertinent about our stalled age, our inability to – I won’t say grow, that sounds like Oprah therapy speak – find our age, to locate what it means to age, to grow out (rather than away) from a base of pop culture.
Rosali
The Spring of 2005 was awful. First, the Pope died and we were treated to a week-long mass on every channel. Then St. Ronnie died 2 months later and we had to repeat the whole 7-day mourning telethon.
I didn’t understand the PopeFest at the time. I knew that he was the leader of Catholics and even the head of state of a very, very tiny territory. But, dude, not everyone is Christian and much less Catholic so we don’t all share the sense of loss. Time to move on.
The Pope-Reagan spring of mourning beat the summer of Versace-Di-Mother Teresa.
SGEW
When I was in Budapest a few years ago, the big deal was a local appearance by WhiteSnake. For real.
So Hungarian reactions to Jackson’s death might mean less than you think: I think they’re still stuck in the eighties.
maya
There was another reason for that coverage – it was convenient camouflage for the Walter Reed Army Medical Center scandal which broke at the same time. FOX NEWS spent 54 hours out of a 55 hour block on her alone. Zero -WRAMC
maya
Rosalie:
Could be topped if Billy Graham, Rush Limbaugh, and some Bush, were to go down in a flaming airliner together.
Hell, I’d even watch. Par-TEE!
Andrew
In 20 years, no one is going to remember who the fuck Tom Russert was. Oh, a fat dude who talked about shit on TV? Wow.
In 20 years, Michael Jackson will still be regarded as the greatest pop singer in history.
Steeplejack
@Wile E. Quixote:
Okay, then, so you don’t like jazz? Right. Got it.
YellowJournalism
That was the point that I knew I had to stay away from the news channels for a few days (or weeks…or months). Although that might not be a bad thing in the long run.
They just reported on my local news that Hugo Chavez thought that the media was making too much of his death. That’s telling you something.
burnspbesq
@Wile E. Quixote:
I will defend to the death your right to be ignorant and prejudiced. But just as a matter of curiosity, have you ever listened to “Giant Steps?”
tofubo
when we first got cable in 2002, press the meat and hardballed were interesting to see, after a while i saw what it was for and went looking elsewhere for news and information, as you wern’t going to find it there
after it came out that russert held everything off the record unless said otherwise, i turned it off altogether and haven’t seen it since
i have never (and will never) watch(ed) the show now that gregory is host, i get all the low-lights that i need from crooks, but if ms maddow hosted…
HyperIon
If you think the media coverage of Jacko’s death is over the top, maybe that’s nature’s way of telling you that you are too immersed in too many media. Unhook and enjoy regular old life!
Michael D.
I am VERY happy to have been on vacation this week and to have missed the non-stop coverage. I haven’t even seen TV this week, and only knew of Jackson’s death because my partner received a text message while we were at Pu’uhonua o Honaunau National Park near the Kona coast in Hawai’i.
Michael D.
@Wile E. Quixote:
And the award for “Things That Just Need to be Said, But No One Wants to Say” goes to WEQ!
Brachiator
I guess the reference to Russert confirms that the blogosphere is its own kind of Village. While NBC and some newspapers covered Russert, it didn’t have anywhere near the world-wide impact of Jackson’s death.
I mean, people were noting how they got a copy of Thriller when they were kids and wore it out. I don’t recall reading many talking about how they got a video of a Russert MTP episode and watched it all day and night for weeks.
And while I see that many people have some kind of magical internal grief monitor by which they calibrate appropriate levels of grief that other people should feel or express, you really should keep this narcissistic shit to yourselves.
As I walked along the streets of Southern California yesterday, I was struck by the number of foreign language newspapers that had MJ on the front page. And noodling a bit at work, I was struck by this photo montage from the Daily Mail (Shocked fans gathered around the world to mourn Michael Jackson).
On the way home, I was listening to LA Times reporter and talk show host Patt Morrison on public radio, asking for listener reaction to Jackson’s death. One woman, originally from Saudi Arabia, spoke about hearing MJ on pirate radio broadcasts and how his music was connected with her dreams of wanting something more in her life than was laid out for her by her society. Another listener, from Romania, spoke about being able to see Jackson during one of his world tours, noting how the concert was attached to his memories of unshackling from totalitarianism.
A music industry executive noted how Jackson’s albums Off the Wall and especially Thriller broke big worldwide, where the past model was for even the most well-known artist to break big in the US and maybe the UK, and then gradually roll out in other countries. The Wiki notes of Thriller:
But again I note that Jackson, musically and culturally speaking, had been a part of people’s lives since first burst onto the scene with the Jackson 5. Many people grew up along with him.
ricky — Name one musical contribution Jackson made that has lasted beyond the MTV playlist change.
I don’t know. In my little universe, any time corporate racism is blasted is a good day. Before MJ, the assumption was that white people might explode — just freaking blow up in their living rooms — if they saw black performers showing up on their teevees.
burnspbesq — Coltrane died at age 39. That was a tragedy, and an incalcuable loss.
This is a pointless game of one-upsmanship. You might as well say something like “Franz Schubert died at age31. That was a tragedy, and an incalculable loss.”
More real is the tangible impact that a musician or performer has on those who listen to their work, or who have had the pleasure of actually seeing them perform at their creative peak. Their effect on people’s eyes, ears and hearts is so great that they can barely believe it when the artist dies, and perhaps explains why some semi-seriously (and others with an obsessive weirdness) maintain that Elvis is still alive. And it certainly explains this often noted reaction to the death of jazz musician — yes, Wile E. Quixote — jazz musician Charlie Parker:
Shortly after Parker died, graffiti began appearing around New York with the words ‘Bird Lives.’
Wile E. Quixote
@Brachiator
You know, when you write it down like that it’s kind of creepy. Not buying a copy of Thriller and wearing it out, because I did that myself and have a bunch of MJ songs on my workout playlist (because there’s nothing better than watching a 43 year old one-legged white guy shaking his booty to Michael Jackson and the Pet Shop Boys on an elliptical trainer) but the idea of having a video of Tim Russert and watching it over and over and over and over again. I mean if someone admitted that to me I’d want to stay the Hell away from them.
Wile E. Quixote
@burnspbesq
No I haven’t, the only John Coltrane (see, I’m not a cool Jazz aficionado because I use his first name) albums in my music collection are “Blue Train” and a compilation called “Coltrane for Lovers”. I actually enjoy both of these because both of them contain what is recognizably music as opposed to merely jazz, although I wish that someone would have bitch slapped Coltrane’s drummer and said “Sit the fuck down, shut the fuck up, lay down a 4/4 beat and I swear on the graves of Bix Beiderbecke and the Bird himself that if you go anywhere near that fucking hi-hat I’m going to crush your testicles with a pair of Vise-Grip™ pliers.” So I do like some music which could be described as “Jazz”. However there is some Jazz out there that is just total shit, Miles Davis’s “Bitches Brew” as an example, which sounds like a bunch of jumped up spastics on smack trying to complete a sound check and series of tune-ups before getting ready for a performance. I got this a few years ago and listened to it and remember thinking “I’m waiting for the music to start Mr. Davis”, sadly enough Miles ran the voodoo down, but never started the music up.