The day Michael Jackson died, people all across America tuned into every news channel to hear the same blurb repeated over and over for 12 hours. When Michael Jackson died there apparently was no longer conflict in Iran or a need to make snarky comments regarding Sanford's vacation to the Appalachians. Well, at least nothing important enough to push Michael Jackson from center-stage.
To say that Michael Jackson was not an influential person or that the U.S. was not devastated by his shocking death would be a foolish thing to say. He grew up in the spotlight alongside the Jackson Five, propelling himself into idol-dom after achieving a stream of #1 hits during his solo-career ("Thriller," "Beat It," "Black or White," etc). In short, America's infatuation with Michael Jackson is understandable. The media's ignorance of anything else significant that occurred on the day he died is not.
What sort of message do we send as Americans to foreign countries that tune in to watch our 5:00 news, and find the only topic is the death of a celebrity? As Americans we take offense at the way other countries perceive and label us, yet we allow our media sources to be conquered by tabloid gossip. What sort of example are we setting for the younger generations of Americans, who while gearing up to lead the nation find the currently accepted point of high-brow discussion being one celebrity. Well, to be fair, two celebrities. (Farrah Fawcett died on the same day and also made sparse appearances throughout the news media.)
Generally, American culture tends to find obsessions and latch onto them until discovering a juicier one to replace it. Take the Swine flu "pandemic" for example.
For weeks, all the media focused on was this supposed outbreak of dangerous swine flu that left its victims lying in bed drinking tea and eating chicken noodle soup. The question remains: Why does our society feel the need to fill primetime news space with celebrity obituaries or hyper-inflated warnings against theoretically devastating illnesses? Why does our culture need a tragedy or high-risk threat to feel complete? Instead of focusing all of our time on celebrity gossip, news media should at least consider tossing in a few additional issues that hold importance to the percentage of Americans interested in more than just the death of a pop icon. Of course, the media needs to make money just like any other business and the public gets what the public wants. This time it was a bejeweled-glove wearing mega-star.
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