Michael Jackson’s burial was closed to the media and the public yesterday – and yet it was still a big deal.

So if you were the media, what would you do? Somehow convince a mourner to reveal exactly what happened during Michael Jackson’s funeral? String out whatever painfully obvious observations you’re given – including the stunning revelation that Michael Jackson’s children seemed quite sad to be burying their father – into a hopelessly padded report that ends up being slightly uncomfortable to read?

Yes, that’s obviously what you’d do. And, as it happens, what you did yesterday. Those children were very sad, you know.

Michael Jackson’s memorial service was a piece of cake, wasn’t it? It was easy to describe what was going on, because it was on just about every single television channel going, and then in all the newspapers the day after. We all knew that Mariah Carey couldn’t sing in tune, that Usher kept wiping his hands on Michael Jackson’s coffin and that Magic Johnson has got such an unusual fixation on chicken that he should probably go away and bloody well marry one, because we saw it happen.

But Michael Jackson’s funeral yesterday? That’s a different matter entirely. The only people who know what happened there are the 200 invited guests who attended the service, and rightly so. Open the funeral up the fans and the media and it’d be a free-for-all of white-gloved idiots wailing like they’d just seen their own mother get gunned down in front of them and packs of cameramen jostling each other for the angle where Paris Jackson looked the most grief-stricken.

And because of this, nobody really knows what happened during Michael Jackson’s funeral. But we live in a 24-hour, must-know-everything culture these days, so that’s not good enough. The media had to pull something out of its arse to keep the punters happy, and here’s what it came up with:

Time magazine resorted to the old ‘list the famous guests’ trick – noting that Elizabeth Taylor, Macaulay Culkin, Mila Kunis, Lisa-Marie Presley and a man most notable because ’90% of his body was scorched in a childhood fire’ all attended Michael Jackson’s send-off.

Reuters, meanwhile, decided to go with a ‘Factbox’ reminding us all about the different things that killed Michael Jackson. Like, for instance:

Ephedrine is a stimulant and decongestant, similar to the ingredients in the over-the-counter cold pill Sudafed and also to the illegal “upper” methamphetamine.

And then there’s the Associated Press, which decided to cobble together as many details as it could about the service and present it as if it was actually there – including the fact that Gladys Knight performed The Lord’s Prayer, the fact that all of Michael Jackson’s brothers wore a white glove and the fact that – as the headline itself declared – ‘Many wept’. Essential pieces of information, we’re sure you’ll agree.

But it’s definitely a good thing that media outlets were forced to scrabble around for information like this, because it kept Michael Jackson’s funeral private and intimate, giving him the quiet dignity in death that he could never quite attain in life. Frankly the Jackson family should be applauded for their restraint and realisation that not everything about their son was meant for public consumption. Pardon? What’s that, AP?

A large, blimp-like inflated light, the type used in film and television production, and a boom camera hovered over the seating area placed in front of the elaborate marble mausoleum. The equipment raised the possibility that the footage would be used for the Jackson concert documentary “This Is It,” or perhaps the Jackson brothers’ upcoming reality show.

Oh for God’s sake.

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