In college my roommates and I used to recklessly throw a ball—or a beer bottle or a shoe—around the living room of the tumbledown house we lived in. The game wasn’t over until something in the room was destroyed. Hence the name of the game, "The Play Until Something Gets Destroyed Game."
I was reminded of those nihilistic days as I watched MSNBC take us in three days from being shocked and sorrowful (and a little shocked at just how sorrowful) to muffling our own guilty grumbles: Okay, enough about a TV news guy, however warm, smart and decent.
TV media just doesn’t know a story is over until its subject, living or dead, has been destroyed, along with our good feelings.