Lewis Black Criticizes Media Coverage Of Whitney Houston’s Death
By Laura Aguirre
Last night, comedian Lewis Black stopped by “The Daily Show”, and slammed the media for the way they handled Whitney Houston‘s death. He called out CNN‘s (and former “Dancing with the Stars” contestant) Nancy Grace for her wild speculations, and Fox News‘ Eric Boiling for criticizing and comparing California Democratic Congresswoman Maxine Waters to Houston. To Black, everyone covering the singer’s death were a bunch of “a**holes”.
It seemed like Black yearned for a time when covering the death of famous person was treated with some respect. He said:
“Can we cool it with the wordplay? When Cronkite announced the death of JFK, it wan’t with a clever ‘Ask not, who got shot in Dallas today!”
He also presented a montage of various news anchors making unnecessary and awkward references to Houston’s work, criticizing their ability to use up every part of the tragedy for their segments.
One of the other things that outraged Black was Nancy Grace’s wild speculation that suggested Houston had been thrown in the pool, even though there was hard evidence that she died from years of drug addiction.
Black also mentioned Eric Boiling who took advantage of Houston’s death to send a message to congresswoman Maxine Waters by saying, “step away from the crack pipe”. Black said:
“Well, there you have it! A beloved pop icon’s death used to criticize the Democrats’ choice for the banking committee!”
Black does make a good point. Whenever an icon dies, the media squeeze out every bit of the tragedy and leave us exhausted. It’s 2012, and the media still isn’t done covering Michael Jackson‘s death.
Do you agree with Black?
