I think CNN has seen the light: "Michael Jackson: Does anyone care?"

[ghostsofgiants]

http://edition.cnn.com/2005/SHOWBIZ/TV/06/09/jackson.whatiftv.ap/index.html

Gone would be MSNBC's puppet theater, the E! Entertainment trial re-enactments, the dependence on analysts eager for airtime -- all displaced by a daily dose of the sober machinery of justice.

But would people have watched?

For legal and media experts, it's arguable whether the case's failure to grip the public like other celebrity trials -- or even the Scott Peterson murder case -- would have been changed by courtroom cameras.

In the trial that set the bar for audience fixation, O.J. Simpson's solid, good-guy image was shockingly cast in doubt by murder charges. With Jackson, his odd life has repeatedly been put through the media mill.

"There was a sense that everything we were hearing we'd heard before," said TV scholar Robert Thompson. "This was like a rerun. ... So much of this had already been on, there were no bombshells dropped."

(more...)

[Hugin]

1. Nope.

It's an instance of greed gone wrong.

[NewJeffCT]

2. If it had happened in 1985...

It would have been a big story when Jackson was at the height of his "Thriller" popularity... but, now it's like a freak show.

[LibDemAlways]

3. The whores were over-reaching on this one.

No one is talking about Jackson by the water cooler.