Man in the Mirror...

I was procrastinating this evening, as I am wont to do, and decided to watch French news to keep up my language skills. The headline news story, just after the trial of the "responsables" for an accident in the tunnel under Mont Blanc, and the election in Iraq? Some other important, hard-hitting news item? The impending reforms of the beloved 35 hour work-week? Chirac successor Nicholas Sarkozy? The first China-Taiwan flight in 56 years? No.

The next most important news story of the day was the trial of Michael Jackson, of course! It's also on the the cover of the Druge Report, which has (mon dieu!) discovered the identity of the child's mother--her married name is now (oh, Alanis, the irony!) Janet Jackson.

I must say that, just like the with the buzz over the SpongeBob, the film Sideways, Sundance, Jenna Bush's beau, and many other items in the "news," I'm rather unimpressed. What this trial represents--the destruction of a child's life, and the depraved state of a dethroned "king" of pop--is revolting, and deserves not our attention and gawking, but our pity.

That Mr. Jackson is trying to use the media to his favor is not lost on my consideration of his situation. That there's a child at the heart of this case who didn't ask to be involved in any of this, though, is forefront in my mind. This is one time in which the media--of the US, the UK, France, and all other respectable nations--should back off. Good taste, and common decency, require it.