Thursday, November 20, 2003
THE WAITING IS THE HARDEST PART: I haven't been watching the MSNBC coverage of the "breaking Michael Jackson story" because it's news; you should know me well enough by now that I don't consider most celebrity cattle business "news" except in extreme cases. I make no excuses for myself...I was rubbernecking at a disaster in the making.
It's always amusing to see the news channels try to make a static longshot of something that isn't moving seem more interesting than it is. The second false alarm (I missed the first one, dang it) was interesting to see, hearing the on-air talent vamp for time, prattling nonstop about what we were seeing would be if it was actually Jacko. Then the real Jacko jet parked halfway into the hanger (because they were obviously watching the coverage, too), and we were treated to yet another camera shot of nothing going on, followed by a caravan, which everybody at the desk was paranoid enough to think might have been a decoy until the Jackson team unpiled at the police station.
(Sidebar: Before I fired up the browser, a woman from Court TV said that Jacko shouldn't be insisting on special treatment, and be walking around in his "regular clothes" like a run-of-the-mill criminal. The only proper response: You mean to tell me Michael Jackson HAS regular clothes?)
Which brings us to 3:29PM: An intensely grainy digital zoom on a still from the video of Jackson entering the Santa Barbara Police station. The zoom is on his hands, close together and behind his back, and the reporters are speculating as to whether they handcuffed him or not. At least three minutes of this journalistic masturbation was my limit. Time for cartoons to clear my head.
It's always amusing to see the news channels try to make a static longshot of something that isn't moving seem more interesting than it is. The second false alarm (I missed the first one, dang it) was interesting to see, hearing the on-air talent vamp for time, prattling nonstop about what we were seeing would be if it was actually Jacko. Then the real Jacko jet parked halfway into the hanger (because they were obviously watching the coverage, too), and we were treated to yet another camera shot of nothing going on, followed by a caravan, which everybody at the desk was paranoid enough to think might have been a decoy until the Jackson team unpiled at the police station.
(Sidebar: Before I fired up the browser, a woman from Court TV said that Jacko shouldn't be insisting on special treatment, and be walking around in his "regular clothes" like a run-of-the-mill criminal. The only proper response: You mean to tell me Michael Jackson HAS regular clothes?)
Which brings us to 3:29PM: An intensely grainy digital zoom on a still from the video of Jackson entering the Santa Barbara Police station. The zoom is on his hands, close together and behind his back, and the reporters are speculating as to whether they handcuffed him or not. At least three minutes of this journalistic masturbation was my limit. Time for cartoons to clear my head.
|| Eric 3:45 PM#
