The Media and MJ: News or Storytelling?

Since the death of Michael Jackson, the media has been investigating the intrigue, innuendo and grief that have surrounded his public life and sudden passing.  There has been some discussion about the saturation coverage of all things Jackson over the last few weeks but it does not seem that the public has wearied of it.  There are countless angles for the media and the audiences to pursue and neither side has shown any Jackson fatigue after 12 days and counting of coverage, which achieve a crescendo and its first intermission with Jackson's memorial service in Los Angeles.

While it would be easy to cite news topics that have been bumped off the front pages, Twitter's trending topics and the scrolling tickers as evidence of irresponsible sensationalism by the media, the fact is that audiences are fascinated and obsessed with the story because of the complexity of the character who is at the heart of it.

Jackson has had several turns as the focus of saturation media coverage, the type that makes it difficult to distinguish the tabloids from those media organs that boast that they shoulder the legacy of credibility and trust that belonged to the likes of Walter Cronkite, Edward R. Murrow or even Peter Jennings, Tom Brokaw, Bernard Shaw or whoever else each network would like to cite as their touchstones of integrity and professionalism.

The interest that has surrounded Michael Jackson's death and the controversies of his personal life is not predicated the bearing he has had on issues of global significance and concern.  Throughout his past controversies, he has merely taken a stage in the public domain that has been previously occupied by Brittany Spears, O.J. Simpson and other celebrities caught in an ignominious moment.

During such controversies public attention is fixated not because of the relevance to our well-beings but because of the heightened interest in how this story will unfold.  In such moments, the line between a news story and the bedtime stories or morality tales that are staples of fiction or myth.

Michael Jackson's death is evidence of a tendency among news media to try to plot out a narrative that will compel audiences to follow a story to its conclusion rather than do the investigation and newshounding that provided people with the facts and the core of stories and issues that have greater influence on their lives. 

Much of the coverage over the last two weeks has been used to set up future plot points and developing characters for the quasi-daytime soap coverage that will be the custody battle, execution of Jackson's will and the mystery surrounding his cause of death.

Such "plot development" is often carried out at the expense of in-depth reporting.  Recently, in the run up to the June 12 election in Iran, Newsweek's June 1 issue ran with the headline "Everything You Think You Know About Iran is Wrong" and angled its coverage toward the likelihood of a moderate win that would usher in a new era for Iran and Iran-American relations.  NBC's "Dateline" took the same tact on June 6 with its indepth coverage of the election.  It is debatable whether the media were capturing the facts of the story or were merely caught up in an optimism of unknown source with the reporting they did before the election.  When the results did not lead to the anticipated moderate victory, the mainstream media was nothing short of sluggish in its response to the harsh realities in the streets of Iran.

TV news is merely content and the chance to serialize it is rarely passed up.  In the Michael Jackson death and other recent stories, the media craft news into archetypal moments or plot points, attempting to anticipate potential consequences.  In doing so they act more like soothsayers or Hollywood script doctors than credible journalists.

They are not, however, alone in this.  In the coverage of the Jackson funeral it is clear that the audiences still have not gotten enough of the story.  When the salacious details of Michael Jackson's life are unfolded and his various hangers-on each exercise his or her profit motive, the captive audience will remain large because of the desire to find some meaning, some mythic structure or some original point of reference in this tragic story.

Meanwhile, the world economy, swine flu, American medicare, car bailouts and war near and far, despite their significance, remain ignored because for all intents and purposes they are too tedious and too demanding for audiences to figure out.

Sadly, audiences' capacity for the details and nuances for more important matters falls short of what it ought to be.