It’s finally hit me. He’s gone.

At first I was shocked… then indifferent… then moved by the death of Michael Jackson within the recent week.

It’s taken me a while to get to this point and its probably got to do with the fact that I’m a bit jaded when it comes to these things. I hear death, destruction, and crazy stories all the time in the newsroom.

So today I was just driving home about to turn on some tunes on my iPod. For some reason I felt compelled to hear some Maroon5 jams, but while I was cycling through the neighborhood of M artists I remembered… MJ

In my own little tribute of a way.. I pushed play when the dial’s highlighter landed on the King of Pop.

I was in the car long enough to hear some of my playlist: Don’t Stop Til’ You Get Enough, Man in the Mirror, Black or White, and Billie Jean. Now I know this is going to sound cheesy – it moved me. It got me dancing in my car and also thinking about the universal themes of life.

I’m not quite sure if he wrote his own songs. He’s a great singer, dancer, performer… but was he a songwriter?  So after a Google news search I came across this news report from NPR. It looks at his talent in a different light. If you’ve got time I recommend checking it out.

It’s reports like this that makes me really happy that we have news outlets who provide depth and angles not covered by the major commercial news channels. I’m sick of hearing on constant repeat the details of his will, the fate of his children, and reaction from celebrities looking to share the limelight.

Yeah it’s big news – his death has been one of the biggest WTF news moments of my life – but I’m hoping the magnifying glass will be set aside soon.

My last WTF news moment in memory?  The time my radio alarm clock woke me up with the news on Sept. 11, 2001…