Ostrow: Jackson rite saturates new media

The notion of "wall to wall" gained new meaning Tuesday with entertainer Michael Jackson's memorial service.
Newer technology, including online streams, live blogging and Twitter, expanded media coverage exponentially, and the audience swelled far beyond the mourners, celebrities and common citizens who packed into Los Angeles' Staples Center.
Reporters in Moscow covering President Barack Obama's state visit watched CNN International coverage. European TV outlets cleared their prime-time slates. Hulu, My Space and Facebook live-streamed the event. Ditto for satellite radio.
"It's probably the biggest media event, the biggest Internet event, ever, frankly," CNN gushed.
Pondering the pope, politicians and other celebrities, ABC's Charles Gibson concluded Jackson "may be the most famous person in the world."
Network coverage overall was respectful but professional, not buying into hagiography.
The global brand of Michael Jackson snarled online traffic as it had Los Angeles streets, and was expected to test the very infrastructure of the Internet.
Denver tweeters contributed. Among their wide-ranging posts: the death of michael jackson has officially crossed over the "bizarre" line. newsflash: he was a singer, not god — mollydooker... Okay, I'm trying to be cynical about the Michael Jackson memorial and I just can't be. It is touching. — LaRosaLoca
For media analysts, the familiar chicken-and- egg question arose: Was the country clamoring for news of a dead celebrity, or did the media fuel interest to justify extended coverage?
"It's not necessarily that there's more public interest, but there's more opportunity for the public to express its interest," said S. Robert Lichter of the Center for Media and Public Affairs in Fairfax, Va. "Social media magnify the effect of the traditional media."
Like many media traditionalists, he found that prospect depressing. "I mean, there are riots in China," Lichter said.
While news outlets indulged and hyped public fascination, certain aspects of Jackson's life — the criminal trial on molestation charges and "personal predilections," as ABC's Martin Bashir put it — were dutifully referenced.
The comparison is inevitable: Another music icon who died just before a planned comeback tour, Elvis Presley, received far different media treatment in death. In 1977, when he similarly had become a caricature of himself, Elvis was too modestly memorialized in print and on TV.
That was years before the explosion of celebrity culture, before CNN launched the 2 4/7 news cycle, before the birth of interactive media technologies.
The numbers are still out on how many people watched Jackson's memorial, but the online audience was expected to rival that of Obama's inauguration, another daytime event witnessed by many on computers at work.
Going forward, does the Jackson coverage become more affectionate, more about the music and less about the "freakish things"? asked NBC's Brian Williams, covering his bases.
"We have to cover all aspects of what made him famous and infamous," Lester Holt replied.