So I believe from the news yesterday and today.  There has just been a little bit of coverage of his death.

Now I will admit to being no fan of Michael Jackson.  Indeed I hated his music and mocked him as a freak and a paedophile.  (Indeed for years I had my wife convinced that among his various cosmetic surgeries he’d had his balls cut off to enable him to sing higher notes.)

However, even I’ve found the coverage of his death a tad on the morbid side.  It started out yesterday when pictures of his dead body on a stretcher being taken to an ambulance were all over the news.  Today has topped that with the news on the radio playing the tape of the 911 call from his house.  I really fail to see the news value in both of these.  Yes we know he died, yes we know there would have been a medical emergency, but do we really need to hear it in detail and see pictures of him dead?

Jackson’s death does not really surprise me.  I’ve long thought he would die early and quite likely by his own hand.  Whether the latter is the case remains to be seen, but speculation is already that prescription drugs played a part.  Accident or deliberate?

I was saying to someone last night that in many ways, Michael Jackson should have died 15 years or so ago, before he turned into a somewhat sad figure of ridicule, and before his troubles with accusations of inappropriate conduct with young boys.  I don’t think I’m alone in this view.  Consider all the tributes and obituaries in the media about him yesterday and today and you’ll see much more like this:

which is clearly how people would prefer to remember him, rather than this:

the bizarre weirdo he became.

On the subject of the morbid fascination with Jackson’s health I found this amusing.  In particular the promise of updates on the state of his health.

Well I’ve got news, his current health status will not be changing any time soon!

Meanwhile, in other, clearly far less important news, 11 people were killed in a bombing in Baghdad yesterday, which follows 78 people being killed on Wednesday and another 73 a few days earlier.