After seven p.m. Eastern Standard, every cable news channel in America began their breaking news coverage of Michael Jackson’s death – and it’s still going on this morning. As the tributes poured in from Michael’s celebrity friends, his family, and from friends alike, newscasters and lay people began suggesting that Jackson’s sudden, unexpected death was “like Princess Diana”. Reuters began their coverage with this sentence: “Michael Jackson’s sudden death on Thursday was perhaps the most shocking celebrity demise since his friend Princess Diana was killed in a car crash in 1997.” People around the world began to see the resemblence in situations too: “Rina Masaoka, a 21-year-old college student in Japan, said: ‘This will probably be as shocking as Princess Diana’s death.’”

There’s already a backlash against Diana-Michael Jackson comparisons, but people are already moving on to compare this “event” to John Lennon’s assassination, Kurt Cobain’s suicide, as well as the too-soon deaths of Jim Morrison and Elvis Presley. While I do believe that Michael Jackson’s celebrity, talent, and the joy he brought to so many people has earned him these comparisons, I can’t help but feel that these comparisons cheapen both Michael’s death, as well the memories of Diana, Cobain, Lennon, Presley and Morrison. Letting Michael’s life and death stand as it’s own “event” with no comparisons might be better in the long run.

CB and I have been chatting about the tone of the coverage – I really think this is going to be the neverending tabloid story, bigger than Diana and all of the rest of them. CB hopes that people will be respectful – and maybe that’s what the Princess Diana comparison is about, people searching for a way to put Jackson’s death in a respectful context. Because of the current nature of celebrity journalism, gossip and the multimedia shennigans we all participate in as consumers, I don’t we’ve even seen the beginning of this stuff. Add to that the life of Michael Jackson – which was as sordid as it was iconic – and friends, family, hangers-on, fans, everybody will be coming out of the woodwork on this one.

The Los Angeles coroner will complete the autopsy in the next several hours, but until then, much of media coverage has been on how Michael died. The first reports were simply that Jackson collapsed, that he stopped breathing and that he could not be resuscitated by his own physician or by the paramedics. Jermaine Jackson told the media: “The personal physician who was with him at the time attempted to resuscitate my brother – as did paramedics who transported him to the hospital… Upon arriving at the hospital at approximately 1:14 p.m., a team of doctors, including emergency physicians and cardiologists, attempted to resuscitate him for a period of one hour and they were unsuccessful.”

This has not stopped the self-described “Jackson family lawyer” Brian Oxman from doing an epic round of interviews last night and this morning. Oxman has been telling everyone who will listen that Jackson was a prescription drug addict, and described Jackson’s entourage as “enabling him”. Oxman also claimed that he had been warning the Jackson family about Michael’s addiction for a while. Life & Style is also reporting on the cocktail of drugs Michael might have been on – Xanax, Zoloft, and Demeral. CB also thinks that a prescription drug interaction might be the root of all of this. We’ll see.