Wall-to-wall coverage of Michael Jackson’s death continues unabated while Farrah Fawcett’s demise slides off the main page. I bet the news people are kind of relieved because who wants to say “anal cancer” on the air? Wolf Blitzer probably giggles every time he says it, that jerk.
Here is an exclusive news clip that was linked to me by my pal jackrabbit, who has his pulse on celebrity news like some guy that holds onto something and won’t let go, even if you pull really hard:
Along these lines, I watched a bit of CNN’s live feed yesterday (I am sans cable, so no TV for me) and to fill in the airtime, they started reading viewer comments. “This is from Christy. Christy says ‘I am so sad!'” Later they needed to fill more airtime and they returned to the viewer comments. Curiously, they chose Christy’s again. I guess her sadness was so profound it had to be shared repeatedly. I flipped over briefly to ABC News’ live feed and their approach was a bit different. They just let the camera roll while nothing was happening. The reporter was milling about, adjusting her hair, chatting to people off-camera, all of it live and in pseudo high-def. This is bleeding edge stuff, folks. It’s like watching the future happen.
And as much as I mock it, I’m still going to link to a CNN story on Jackson’s death temporarily crippling the Internet. And I quote from said link:
Twitter crashed as users saw multiple “fail whales” — the illustrations the site uses as error messages — user FoieGrasie posting, “Irony: The protesters in Iran using twitter as com are unable to get online because of all the posts of ‘Michael Jackson RIP.’ Well done.”
MSNBC had comments from celebrities and other notables, including Nelson Mandela and Hugo Chavez (!) who may have had the best observation of all: Yeah, it’s sad but man, you guys are just going on way too much about it. Note that the media frames Chavez as a bad guy, so it’s okay to dismiss anything he says (and he does often say the darndest things). Hang in there, Christy!