Has the Media Gone too Far in Its Coverage of Heath Ledger?

I've always watched "Entertainment Tonight" and the competition, though arguably ET is one of the oldest and best having been in existence since 1981. In fact they have since branched off into three different shows, The Insider started off well enough, trying to give viewers a more intimate look at celebrities but has since digressed into tabloid fare as of late and the ET Weekend serves as more of an aggregate recap of the weeks events. But the fact of their attempts to exploit the unfortunate news of Heath Ledgers' death by showing his indifference over drug use is rather disturbing.

ET tries to say that it pulled the video out of respect for his family, which is of course what Dr. Phil said when his infamous attempts at bringing Britney Spears around backfired as well. You have to wonder, in this competitive age if ET wasn't in a position of trying to compete with the likes of TMZ on TV, the up and coming gossip show that is a counterpart to it's website TMZ.com that seems to be everywhere, all of the time, in a moments notice. In fact "TMZ on TV" shows footage of their writers sitting around in a room openly talking about the process as if brainstorming how to put the story together, as though it were just another day at the job.

Tabloid reports of Michelle Williams attempting to drop Ledger off at rehab and the piecing together of a story line by ET that suggests that Ledger was abusing drugs in part because of the stress of dealing with a new baby do not help matters much. I don't really care who voices their protest against this footage or how ET had arrived at their decision not to show it; not doing so was definitely the right thing to do. Yet, ironically, CBS, the distributor and syndicator of ET, didn't afford the same respect when citizens and major media outlets were protesting their broadcast of "Kid Nation" a show that more or less exploits young children in the name of entertainment. This is the same CBS that was behind a controversial season of Survivor that pitted people of different races against each other; perhaps we shouldn't be that surprised.