MJ

Michael Jackson is dead, but this won’t come as a shock as you know that already. This is not an event to be covered by the news, instead the news has been covered b y this event.

The problem for the rolling 24 hour news stations is that this is a very succinct news story. Michael Jackson has died, at the age of fifty, having suffered a cardiac arrest. That is in effect the story the media had in one sentence yet this had been dragged across hours of news coverage. As such the news channels rummage desperately through their contacts list for anyone vaguely relevant to the star. Sadly in Michael Jackson’s case that means his initial UK eulogising is led by Uri Geller whose tribute included the words “before I began my spoon-bending career”.

The other issue with the story is that there is also very limited footage to talk over. So as we watch mobile phone footage of an ambulance reversing through some expensive gates for the sixth time and continue to see non specific aerial footage of UCLA Hospital the news reporters are forced to pad and step into unfortunate faux pas. “He transcended black and white” said BBC News 24’s anchor, “what will happen to his concert run at the o2 is unsure” said Sky News.

On BBC News24 on contributor intoned “It does make you wonder how people are going to follow this?” The truth is that people have been following this for well over a decade now. There is no doubting that musically Michael Jackson’s work is fantastic, his contribution to pop undeniably significant. Yet, it needs to be realised that Michael Jackson’s work ended a long time ago. He has remained courted by the media despite not really doing much.

In the media Michael Jackson the pop star was replaced by Michael Jackson the oddball somewhere in the early 1990s. As such the tributes and the obituaries contained within the rolling news all seemed to include phrases to the effect of “we should not lose sight of his contribution to music”.

It’s easy to mock Michael Jackson, as it is with any major celebrity. The ammunition is there ready and waiting and unsurprisingly the internet has been awash with such deathbed humour since the news was broken, almost all of which has its roots in the last fifteen years of his life.

BBC also had a representative of Jackson’s World Fan Club in their studio who said he had hoped that Jackson would “live on for a long time to be a happy old man”. Its not just the poor health that makes that eventuality unlikely. As his lifestyle became increasingly distanced from normality the only way in which Jackson’s music could be his legacy, would be if he were to die relatively young.

To that extent, Jackson’s legacy has been in existence for over a decade already. Think back to the last time you heard ABC or Beat It played in a club? At that point was your reaction to think of Jackson in court? Was it to make a child abuse or plastic surgery related joke? Or was your reaction, as mine was, to dance unconcerned and manic with friends? Thought so.