KING'S DEATH NOTED

PP boy Jeremy Sear tries to milk some hits from the Michael Jackson-is-dead frenzy with a post critical of the volume of news coverage devoted to the entertainer's death. There's some irony in there somewhere.

MSM news coverage is simply a response to public interest:

The internet suffered a number of slowdowns as people the world over rushed to verify accounts of Michael Jackson's death.

Search giant Google confirmed to the BBC that when the news first broke it feared it was under attack.

Millions of people who Googled the star's name were greeted with an error page rather than a list of results.

It warned users "your query looks similar to automated requests from a computer virus or spyware application".

Google's trends page showed that searches for Michael Jackson had reached such a volume that in its so called "hotness" gauge the topic was rated "volcanic".

Jeremy's personal blog also addresses Jackson's passing, albeit somewhat irreverently:

“You could always rely on Michael to come up with something unexpected and disturbing,” friend and producer Quincy Jones told the LA Times.

“Whether it was sleepovers with other people’s children, tearing his face apart with horrendous plastic surgery, clearly fake marriages, naming his two sons “Prince”, dangling one of them out of a window, commissioning unbelievably kitsch works of “art” – Michael Jackson was undoubtedly the King Of Batshit Insane. I will miss him terribly, as will everyone else who made a great deal of money off him.”

Anything to generate some traffic.

Update: A continent mourns:

News of pop star Michael Jackson's death has been greeted with a mixture of disbelief and sadness across Africa.

No condemnation from Jeremy, yet.