Shades of media circuses past: News crews blanket Jackson story

NEW YORK — The rest of the world disappeared from television news networks Thursday as the surreal saga of Michael Jackson played out.

For more than two hours, CNN, Fox News Channel, MSNBC and Court TV covered nothing but the pop star's appearance at the Santa Barbara jail to face child molestation charges.

Over and over, they repeated what Fox News' Trace Gallagher called the money shot — Jackson walking into the sheriff's office in handcuffs — after news helicopters trailed airplanes and vehicles in a frantic attempt to spot the singer.

ABC, CBS, NBC and Fox broadcast networks all broke into programming for brief special reports.

"This is Laci Peterson and shark attacks and Kobe Bryant put together," said Martin Kaplan, professor at the University of Southern California's Annenberg School for Communications. "It's a miraculous combination of sex and taboos and pop music and plastic surgery.

"All that's missing is the white Bronco," Kaplan said, a reference to the slow-speed police chase of O.J. Simpson a decade ago.

Actually, news helicopters followed a black SUV believed to be carrying Jackson after his plane landed at the Santa Barbara airport. CNN even constructed a 3-D map to follow the route from the airport to jail.

The news networks earlier tried to catch Jackson leaving his airplane. After one false start — cameras focusing on an airplane that apparently wasn't Jackson's — the pop star's plane stuck its nose in a hangar to shield exiting passengers from cameras. The jet looked like an ostrich with its head in the sand.

Jackson's older brother, Jermaine, angrily called CNN to denounce a "modern-day lynching" of his brother.

Jermaine Jackson also used an expletive to describe his feelings about people speaking for his family, a word that CNN — working without a tape delay — unwittingly aired.

Michael Jackson was still in the sheriff's office when the news networks, with head-spinning speed, were already onto sidebars: CNN speaking to a psychologist for advice on how to explain the story to children, and Fox News Channel reporting on the media circus it was participating in.

In contrast, all three network evening newscasts said they were leading Thursday with the suicide bombings in Turkey that killed at least 27 people on Thursday.