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Danielle Evans

Analyse, Review and Comment on Media Coverage of Michael Jackson’s Memorial Service

In this essay, I am going to analyse, review and comment upon how the media have reported on Michael Jackson’s funeral at the Staples Centre, LA, on July 7 2009. The media I will cover are: The Daily Star, The Sun, The Sunday Times Magazine, The Guardian and The Times.

This first section will be about how the media present their title page and what their views seem to be at first glance. The Sun uses a picture of Paris, Prince, and Blanket. In this highly emotive, almost inspirational picture, Paris is looking up towards the heavens with a tear running down her face as if she was looking for her father. Prince Michael has his arm around Paris and a protective hand on Blanket’s shoulder. He looks very grown up and is wearing a smart black suit. His eyes, however, show how sad he is. Blanket’s face is half hidden behind a program for the event. He has clearly been crying as you can see the tear tracks on his face. He is clutching a half-naked doll of his father, as if he does not ever want to let go of him. He looks exceptionally young and vulnerable. They all look like a small tight-knit family. This picture is highly unusual as Jackson focused a lot of his energy on hiding them and protecting them from the media. It is ironic that in his death they should finally be pictured, particularly like this. There is a quote down the side, under “Jacko Daughter’s Tribute”. This title seems an unusual choice for a report on a memorial because it comes from the nickname, “Wacko Jacko”, but it also shows a form of respect, as they have dropped “Wacko”. The quote reads, “Ever since I was born, Daddy has been the best father you could ever imagine and I just wanted to say I love him so much”. This quote immediately gets rid of any nonsense. It is completely human. It also suggests a high level of love and devotion to the father that she has lost and it presents evidence that he was to her a nice, caring person despite his problems and the opinions of the press. When Paris said “you” in this quote, she automatically included everyone watching in her overwhelming grief over his death. The fact that she uses the word “Daddy” is also interesting as it shows yet more devotion to him, and more care and love. At the bottom left of the page is a picture of Michael Jackson. This happy picture serves very little purpose except that it shows his great resemblance with Blanket and reinforces that Blanket is his son.  The tone on this page is very sympathetic. It was designed to make you feel sorry for the children. This is very unusual for The Sun, as it generally has a very negative tone and can be very nasty to the people it is reporting on.

This differs greatly from the Daily Star. This has a picture of Jackson’s coffin, and the title says “Jacko RIP” which seems sarcastic, unoriginal, uncaring and over the top. “Jacko” is slang and only part of the nickname “Wacko Jacko” which they previously used for him because of his strange ways. This is unsympathetic although they have dropped the “Wacko” which shows a little respect. The “RIP” bit of the heading is crude, disrespectful and ironic. It is an abbreviated version of “Rest in Peace” however, this was hardly true as millions of people were watching the entire memorial, and therefore it was not in peace, in fact, it was far from it. It is also disrespectful to have abbreviated the words. The main picture seems like a bad choice as it does not invoke emotion from people, does not show anything of what the memorial itself was like and it just looks like a coffin. There is a small picture of Michael when he was still black in the top right which does not seem to serve any purpose. Altogether, because of its unsympathetic tone, the Daily Star seems like a less caring newspaper and one that did not really like Michael Jackson and his “Wacko” ways. There is also a small insert of the picture used in The Sun of his three children. However, the Daily Star did have a more respectful sub-heading, “Memorial to the King of Pop”. This has several meanings. Firstly, is the reference to Michael’s highly popular music. The second is to his role as a father to Paris, Prince Michael and Blanket. In her highly emotional and unscheduled speech, she told the world that Jackson was “the best father you can imagine”. While reviewing the Daily Star I noticed that there were more adverts than coverage of the story. This, to me, seems disrespectful, as if they are implying that his death is less important to them.

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Next, there is The Sunday Times Magazine. This is very different to both the tabloids. It has a picture of Michael Jackson, standing with his hands together as if in prayer with white angel type wings. He is standing over a satanic type figure and seems to be portrayed in a similar light to Jesus. It is a very religiously symbolic picture. The caption to the side reads “The Sins of the Father” which seems cruel and unfair to the children. It is, in my opinion, unkind and disrespectful to mention his problems so soon after his death when they ...

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