Who's Responsible?

I did not have sexual relations with that woman! Recognize these words? They came up just as the Bill Clinton saga was unfolding. I would definitely put this scandal up as a media event.

In Andrew Hepp and Nick Couldry's Media events in globalized media culture, they try to define what a media event is. What is it anyway? Who decides when an event becomes a media event? Or are all major events media events as well?

Is there any media event that you thought shouldn't have been? Like say the death of the king of pop, Michael Jackson. For his fans and music lovers, the cancellation of normal television programming to show the highlights of his life, the endless pictures and stories in all the newspapers around the world and the numerous reports about him in the news were all necessary. But what about the rest who didn't think it was such a big deal? To them this was not even an event. So how does a non-event get to be a media event?

And back to the Bill Clinton saga. What does it matter what he's doing when he is not running the country? I am not saying that what he did is okay, it is definitely immoral and a disgrace. But do we really need to investigate the details? Do we need to hear about it over and over and over again? Do we need to label it an event? A media event?

Daniel Dayan and Elihu Katz define a media event on three levels, syntactic, semantic and pragmatic. But who checks to make sure that an event is qualified before it's sent out to be a media event?