JFK Jr. was Twenty Years ago Today...

...and the media was decadent and depraved.

Twenty years ago this morning we woke up, turned on the TV and saw the headline, 'JFK Jr. killed in plane crash.'

For younger reader(s) JFK Jr. was a celebrity. Raised in the public eye, the nation fretted over Junior's bar exam. He was long considered the nation's most eligible bachelor. He gave a speech at the DNC. After that the usual suspects wondered when Junior would run for office. New York Senate? Perhaps mayor of NYC?

We used to think of Junior as a member of the idle elite. That morning we called him the finest rollerblader of our time. But after watching the likes of Chelsea, the man's life doesn't look so vapid. For a time he was an attorney. In the mid-90s he founded George Magazine. Unlike everyone else in his rotten, no good family, Junior stayed out of trouble.

The media treated Junior's death like a national tragedy. We know, we worked at CNN, and saw the 24 hour coverage up close. It was CNN at it's most clueless, totally un-self aware. It was pathetic. The coverage wasn't about JFK Jr or the Kennedys. The coverage was about the media. Never forget famed Ben Bradlee of the famed Washington Post used to send copy over to the White House for approval.

We saw CNN journos phone ancient Kennedy Administration staffers for yet another televised media hand job, 'Mr. Sorenson my name is....Mr. Salinger CNN is wondering if...'

Junior's death was an excuse for the media to propagate the Camelot myth and further rehabilitate Teddy. For if JKF and Camelot were great, then the media was great for covering them. 

Twenty years ago this morning we saw the headline and thought, Another maritime tragedy for the Kennedys. We admit it, we laughed.