Michael Jackson and the Death of News

Michael Jackson's death has put an end to American news reporting. Tried to watch Rachel Maddow last night but it was wall-to-wall Jackson lamentary, Rachel was gone, instead it was Keith Olberman sitting there in his shirt (like Cronkite/Kennedy?) looking confused and appearing to be on the verge of tears from time time explaining over and over again and again that he really knew nothing as the same clips of sheriff helicopters and ambulances were shown endlessly one after the other. This great commentator who always has an answer for everything is now no longer the night watchman calling out in the darkness but exposed as the village idiot crying "It's eleven o'clock and something is wrong, but I can't explain it, let me start over again. . ."

During the days of the Bush administration I would explain such happenings to myself as the work of Karl Rove. Why else in the days immediately prior to the American invasion of Iraq would the American TV new shows present a few moments of the great build- up of invasion forces and then spend the next twenty-five minutes exploring the Scott Peterson thing? Had to be the work of some "intelligent design", and who else but Karl Rove? Terrible, yes, but also darkly brilliant.

I don't think we can blame Rove for this now, but it is well to ask ourselves who benefits from this and who is hurt by it? The greatest benefactors to my thought are Gov. Sanford and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. The great losers are those searching to expose the illegal activities of elected officials in Washington, and those who are protesting the "election" in Iran. More great winners? The TV news stations - CNN today is bewildered confusion (just returned from being a captive audience member in my doctor's waiting room) and hopelessly hanging on for one bit of news to be given them so they can breathlessly relate it to US. Elsewhere, the world is presented as a great vacuum. "Duh?"

You would think there would be a solution for this problem, but I am not sure there is any specific answer. It probably just boils down to the simple fact that Americans don't care about real news. So maybe that is why the "news" stations have become simply Distraction Centers.