Death of Senator Kennedy covered around the globe.

     The death of Senator Edward Kennedy this week has made headlines on just about all media fronts in the U.S., and as well is an event which has been covered around the globe. It is reasonable for someone of Kennedy's status to receive such attention. The death of any U.S. senator would draw national, and perhaps world wide attention, but in the case of Edward Kennedy the news of his death brings closure to one of America's political dynasties.
     This is an incredibly news worthy event so I took some time this past Saturday to glance through my links and see how various online media sources were choosing to cover the story. Not to my surprise this was front page news on each of my U.S. media links (NPR, FOX News, and CNN) and since it was the day of his funeral it seemed as though the coverage was pretty neutral. There were no partisan spins, and mainly just words about his life and political career. I personally did not follow the career of Senator Kennedy but from what I was able to gather from what I have read this week he really did a lot to help bridge partisan gaps. Perhaps this was why his story was covered in such a neutral fashion, or it may have been simply due to the fact that the day of a man's funeral is hardly the time to start throwing stones.
     What was also interesting was how this story was covered in the international media links (Al Jazeera, BBC News. As soon as I clicked on their respective links there was information on the first page that appeared about Senator Kennedy's life and funeral. These reports too were general in their discussion, and seemed not to delve much past Kennedy's political career and presence in politics as a member of the Kennedy family. This was nice to see. It seemed that around the world on Saturday he was being remembered well as having made a positive impact with his career.
      I really did not have any starting point from which to gauge the coverage. I cannot say that I have payed close enough attention to the deaths of other U.S. senators to be able to make a comparison between how their lives were summarized on the day of their respective funerals, or if they would receive such attention due to the fact that they were not from the Kennedy family. What I did take away from my brief walk through the global and national coverage of Senator Kennedy's funeral, career, and life was that there does seem to be a window of opportunity for someone in political office to be portrayed neutrally across most mass media fronts, and I hope that I discover another instance, honestly, because I do not want to think that it takes a man's death for partisan-driven news sources to take off the gloves and report without slants.