I blame the news for this one!

You have exactly taken my point Stvasile, when celebrity nonsense takes over the news what are we reducing our knowledge to. Okay report it once but not endlessly. Is it any wonder I don't hear of anything happening in your country if the news is obsessed by things like wearing shorts, I have to find out on here about organ stealing in India because all the TV news reports are filled with things of little importance. I was particularly suprised that the Greek news made such a song and dance with all the MJ coverage as I don't believe he was particularly newsworthy here before this and certainly Greek music remains the music of choice. I especially cringe when deaths of worthy people receive no more than a passing mention.
As you also rightly point out the previous criticisms miraculously drop. Years ago I was absolutely appalled when the coverage of a royal in the UK dominated the worldwide media even though the persons fame was simply being married to someone of inherited title. Even my favourite quality paper which only the week before had been denigrating the mindlessness of this person there was barely an inch of space not dedicated to the event and suddenly turning this person into an icon. It was pathetic. On the same day the death of a rather great writer Jeffrey Bernard, received approx two lines of obiturary, he would have been intensely annoyed by that as he did rather like to be in the limelight.

Sir Edmund Hillary died on Jan 11 2008. Nobody mentioned his pass. He is of course known for being the first man on the Everest. He also helped building many schools and hospitals in Nepal, helping the Sherpa people. He declared this was the greatest achievement of his life. He was never nominee for a Nobel Peace Prize.

In a short while, on Mars 19 2008 died Sir Arthur C. Clarke. He as a brilliant science-fiction writer and inventor. You might know him for writing the Space Odyssey. He helped testing the first radar and he is the one that proposed the project of the satellite communications systems. In his late years, he settled in Sri Lanka trying to solve the mysteries of the World. Nobody mentioned his death either...

My eyers wet every time I remember these two great men are gone. And they are only two examples, like many others...

For me it was the death of Simon Wiesenthal, my greatest hero, who barely received a mention yet deserved a whole month of coverage. That would have been news which could have really educated younger generations.

I didn't know that Sir Clarke died! He is one of my all time favorite authors and people in general!

Hi Letran, I rather suspect that you have also grasped the point i was making, my child has been amazed that something of so little newsworthiness rather took over and for so long. So I have the question what did he do, well he made songs and danced, tried to turn himself white, lived in an expensive disneyland style house, had no sense of how to deal with money, and invited young boys to sleep in his bed. This was the extent of what I knew and filled my son in with (I'd watched the Martin Bashir interview). But even after my explanation he still found it annoying to sit through so repeated coverage of the same thing but then began to find it all rather amusing. The point about the game seemed to be what's the point as he won't get the money now he's dead, which lead to an explantion of exploitive lawyers.

Hello Sandra, I think my son was rather intrigued by the whole idea of something continuing on the news for so long and the latest craze of playing the music online is simply to annoy me. He already has a knack of absorbing the news perfectly and dragged out the map the other night to try and locate exactly where the recent fires were.

Hope the flu is getting better, at least when I see you online it reassures me

Hi Wolfie, now you've actually read me all wrong on this one my friend. Whilst of course I wish to protect my son physically I would never attempt to censor the news from him to protect him from things going on in the world, my objection here that he was constantly bombarded with the same piece of news with its many interpretations. Obviously I check what he is exposed to but he has only just started using the internet and he knows what he is allowed to use it for and not to wander into dodgy areas there.
But actual news, no matter how disturbing, is part of life. Take for an example the worst news which could have ever been broadcast, the discovery of the nazi concentration camps and what was happening there. It was also happening to children and if some of those children managed to survive what they had endured then surely another child should learn from that and not be protected from it, but obviously with a mature adult on hand to explain the circumstances in detail.

Thank you for the kind remarks about my son, his remarkable intelligence is recognised by all in our area and he is a much adored child.

Hello my friend, please forgive me as it wasn't a deliberate misinterpretation of your discussion, I guess I went off on a tangent and digressed away from where you were coming from.

Nothing at all to forgive my dear friend, your view was welcome and would probably be the one which would concern most parents, rather than my own interpretation. As I just commented to the first responder though I believe that there are far more worthy people whose deaths should be commented on much more and would benefit many with extensive coverage. Unfortunately these now pass as just a footnote in history.

Hi Kitty, nice to see you again. There is nothing wrong at all in your gransond enjoying this music or dancing along.

You don't know me well yet though and will find if you bear with me that I tend to use one subject to explore another one and the intention here was to give consideration to the excessive coverage of a celebtity death at the expense of real news being reported. This was meant as an example of news being dumbed down to mass appeal whilst newsworthy things go unreported. My son has just informed me though of the latest news on this subject, that the British prime minister is being attacked for sending condolences to the family, I'm not quite sure how to interpret that one beyond wondering if he did that why it was necessary to make the fact public. I hope my little digression doesn't put you off.

Hello my friend


Oh no sweety not at all , what I should have done was touch on the media aspects of the post myself, I kinda got caught up in the music and forgot my train of thought lol, although granted there was many other things going on in the world and they should have taken that into consideration I do feel he deserved all the coverage that was given to him, Michael has been around for a long time and he was huge in his own right, to just let the public know that he passed and talk here and there about his life to me would have been unfair to his memory,he deserved the coverage in my opinion after all they could not stop speaking about him when he was alive,so this is how I feel and in no way do I see you any different I still want to exchange thoughts with you as much as possible just keep in mind I wont always agree and hopefully I will express myself in a way as to not offend anyone.


A lot of people feel the way you feel so its really good, how boring will this world be if we all agreed on everything

Hi again Kitty, what a nice approach you have. Differences of opinion make discussions my friend and we can certainly agree to disagree on any subject you like as long as it is conducted with politeness which I'm sure will be the case between us.

So you approved of the mass coverage whilst I did not, maybe the happy medium would have been for the media to produce individual programmes to cover this event rather than blast it all our randomnly on the news. Certainly this appears to be a new phenonemon within the last decade, at least outside the US, I don't know how events like this were previously broadcast there. But in Europe a death would be reported on the news and then maybe a memorial programme screened. But then again I stated openly somewhere else on this discussion that if it had been the death of someone who I believe made a huge contribution to history I would welcome a month of coverage on TV. I suppose the question would be should we extoll celebrity or lives of more historical significance but I can tell from your own words that you believe in this instance that this person was a relevant figure in your life.

Hello my friend


Thats makes a lot of sense having a specific channel so if you want to tune it you can, like I said I was a fan not a die hard fan like a lot of other people, I do feel he got his just and it only shows how important he was to a lot of people, not all but quite a bit,some people feel he didn't get enough coverage I don't know I Feel bad for the man either way I believe he was misunderstood in a lot of ways, virgos tend to be that way I feel no one gets me, no one understands me, being here at mylot helps me with that issue.


Never worry I don't think we will disagree much to be honest with, if I find that we seem to disagree more than agree I will not respond although a good debate never hurt anyone who wants to debate all the time, so we will be fine I like sharing thoughts with you my friend.

Hi Philbo, I could understand the media being manipulated into becoming a marketing tool for a dead popstar in America, as celebrity there has more day to day coverage in the media. I am completely suprised though that it was even mentioned more than once on Greek news, but actually has virtually taken it over to the disgust of many Greeks who are sick to death of it all and probably had little notion of who he even was. It raises the question perhaps of who is manipulating the Greek press into this lunacy. Advertisers perhaps?

I'm Canadian and many of us are as sick of it as you are. I also know that many Americans feel the same way.

Hi Aunty, my son has been following the news because it has overtaken the news and he realises what a waste of time it all is as he reports with increduality yet another development. His usual is 'they're stll going on about it on the news and he's still dead'. There is no chance of my son making a hero of out of him and searching the video was just fun to annoy mummy.
It has raised plenty of questions though which we've been able to discuss, how to budget, why one person can dominate the news by just singing, how not to live in a fairy land, etc.

I know your son is a smart young man. I think it's important for kids to be interested in the news, more of them need to be. I think u are very smart to encourage him to keep up w/what is going on in the world. I just didn't want him to think mj was a hero because in my opinion he is not in any way.

Hi Aunty, he might still have his cartoon heroes on his ten year old side but i think he's bright enough to see through celebrity and pick heroes worth having. Ok I've just asked him right now for 3 people he admires; he came out with Mummy. Alexander the Great from Macedonia, and Jackie Chan.

He sounds very bright. Seems as if u have done a good job w/him.

Hi mladenovicvuk, so you also disagree presumabley then with the mass media coverage of a basic non story of little news importance. I remember hearing of the death of Elvis via Radio Luxembourg but in no way remember the media then talking about nothing else for the next month, there was still real news to be reported on then.

There is no comparison between elvis presley & mj. I was a huge elvis fan & don't appreciate such a comparison between the two. Elvis did have drug prooblems & that was such a shame BUT HE WAS THE KING & ALWAYS WILL BE IN MY BOOK. He was not a child molestoe like mj was. very bad comparison in my opinion.

I hope that was directed at the newbie Aunty.

It sure was thea, made me ill for him to compare elvis to mj.

Hi Iriene, your son seems to have got it bad, in my own sons case he just can't believe that this one event can drag on so endlessly and the video was only found to expressely annoy me, not because he wants to emulate him. But even in Malayasia now it has taken over the media, I would rather see a news report from Malaysia which of course will never happen unless you were to suffer a large national disaster. Such nonsense coverage and obsession leads to less real news being reported. Please explain to your son the wastage of money over this neverland theme park and how bad budgetary practices would surely have lead to its forced selling to cover the debts. Thea

hi psycospaz, the point you make is something I really hadn't considered that much, that the news is now goverened by ratings so obviously then it dumbs down to mass market appeal. It has always been that way with newspapers but I always think of the news as more of a 'public service broadcast.' In the UK the BBC represented the government line so was always to be taken with a pinch of salt, but at least it funded other new options for the more serious minded, such as the excellent 'Newsnight'. Together with Channel 4 news we could appreciate investigative journalism rather than the headline facts with no depth. But as you are now depicting a ratings war over news coverage then without doubt the nonsense celebrity culture will come to dominate the news out of all proportion.

I really started noticing it when the morning shows changed their formats to more of a talk show, happy go lucky feel. And that is when I quit watching the news. Fox and ABC is the worse for those types, I think. But if that is what the masses want, that is what the masses get.

Don't you have any unbiased media who question. Whenever I've seen Michael Moore he always seems to have a pretty good insight.