Bread and circuses

In a week when the U.S. withdrew in Iraq and attacked in Afghanistan, when the governor of California declared an economic emergency and the governor of Alaska stepped down, it was Michael Jackson who drove the news agenda.

The dominant story ever since he died on June 25, the fascination with Jackson’s life and death filled 17% of the newshole from June 29-July 5, according to the Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism. …
. . .

The Jackson story filled 30% of the airtime studied on network news and 28% on cable news last week. Within the network news universe, the more feature-oriented morning shows spent more than half their time (56%) on the story compared with 20% in the evening.

The Project for Excellence in Journalism (PEJ) has more.

4 thoughts on “Bread and circuses”

  1. Now come on. Did the US withdraw all of its troops? No. Did we win anything significant in Afghanistan? No. Does Sarah Palin mean anything more to the great majority of people than Rob Blagojevich does? No. California has been an economic sinkhole for a while, and will continue to be one.

    Is it terrible that the coverage of one of the most significant entertainers of the last 30 years has taken over a couple of news cycles? No. I stopped caring about Michael Jackson after his album Dangerous (1991), and STILL I think he deserves a couple of news cycles.

  2. Hugh, nearly a third of TV news coverage for 12 days?!? That is not “a couple of news cycles.” He was a tiresome, sick little man.

  3. Ken, I’ll put down that putdown to a generation gap. Maybe it’s because I don’t watch enough CNN.

  4. I meant to dispute you Hugh, not put you down. I am sorry it came across that way. I need to be more careful.

    I do believe he was a sick, tiresome little man and this outpouring of coverage was manipulated by people around him and the foolhardiness of the TV news networks. Polls indicate that the public felt it was much too much coverage. He was just an entertainer.

    I don’t watch any CNN (or any of the others — neither TV has been on in my house since the U.S. Open). The report above is from Pew.

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