Mother of U.S. soldier killed in Afghanistan calls out media excessive coverage of Michael Jackson

July 8, 1:47 AMPolitical Buzz ExaminerRyan Witt

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Memorial Service held for Lt. Brian N. Bradshaw.  AP Photo Dean J. Koepfler

Fox News released a very interesting article detailing the outrage of one family over the excessive media coverage of Michael Jackson's passing.  Normally this would not be news as many people have been upset about the over-coverage of Jackson but what makes this story worthwhile is the position of the family.  The family are relatives of 1st Lt. Brian N. Bradshaw who was one of 13 soldiers who sacrificed their life for country in Afghanistan.  Bradshaw was killed when I.E.D. exploded near his vehicle.  While the Michael Jackson story has been covered 24/7 the death of their loved one and other soldiers got little to no coverage in the mainstream media.

The family of Lt. Brian N. Bradshaw said that coverage of Michael Jackson's death has become ridiculous.  The statistics seem to point to the truth of their claim.  According the Media Research Center as cited in the article coverage of 7 U.S. soldier deaths in Afghanistan received just 1/20th of the coverage of Michael Jackson's death on Monday.  I empathize with the news media to a certain point in that not every story can be covered as much as it should.  There is a limited amount of time and space so sometimes worthy stories get cut.  Having said that, surely more time could have been devoted to other stories like Afghanistan.  

Curiously Fox News did not release stats as to its own coverage.  In my personal observation watching the Fox News today I saw extensive coverage of the Michael Jackson memorial service and very little of Afghanistan.  Perhaps Fox News should read their own articles.

I have also been critical of the media's overexposure of the Michael Jackson story.  I have attempted to cover the Iran story, health care, and climate change bill as much if not more than the Michael Jackson story.  However, I will admit right now I have not covered the Afghanistan story as much as it deserves.  I will begin to correct that mistake in the next article I post about the current offensive going on in Afghanistan.