The evening television news programs Sunday devoted a third or more of their time to Perry’s passing, with anchors reading somber, pretentious obituaries and “on-the-spot” reporters chiming in with superficial and predictable biographical details. The coverage was vast, omnipresent but thoroughly shallow, with the usual media combination of titillation and moralizing about such celebrity deaths. The emphasis given to the actor’s death seriously suggested that this was the most important development going on in the world this past weekend.
In the first place, this is a conscious attempt to black out the horrifying genocide and ethnic cleansing being conducted against the Palestinians in Gaza by the Israeli military, with the enthusiastic support of the White House and Congress and every Western power. Moreover, the news media in the US is engaged in deliberately concealing the size and significance of the massive demonstrations occurring on every inhabited continent against the Israeli mass murder. The death of Matthew Perry, from the point of view of the American media, largely an arm of the Pentagon and CIA, came as a godsend—Here was something they could truly sink their teeth into!
-- Kevin Reed and David Walsh, "The corporate media, Gaza and the death of television actor Matthew Perry" (WSWS).
