It actually happens all the time, it's just the news value that fluctuates i.e. Farrah Fawcett's death would have dropped out of the news here in the UK in a matter of days, but since MJ died too, it will be remembered as "happening at roughly the same time as MJ died" (with all due respect to Farrah Fawcett) - indeed, Arthur C. Clarke and Anthony Minghella not only died in the same week last year, but according to
this website, Anthony Minghella died twice in the same week himself!!
I'm not too embarrassed to admit that I was an MJ fan back in the day - and I gave the MJ estate another 79 pence today (you can thank me later, Joe) by buying "Beat It" on MP3, a truly brilliant crossover rock/pop song that, IMO, along with "Billie Jean", were almost without equal in a decade of music. What I am embarrassed to admit, however - and I can reveal a GTP Exclusive here (you can thank me later, Jordan) is what I now call "The Nürnberg Incident". I was on holiday in Germany, summer of 88, and had just bought "Bad" on cassette. My family and I were staying with friends in Nürnberg and the boy of the family, Thorsten, asked if he could copy my tape. I, being a stuck-up little goody-two-shoes, said no

A few hours later, I caught him trying to copy the tape anyway, despite my refusal to sanction such a dastardly act of blatant piracy (you can thank me later, Michael... no, wait). Anyway, I took his half-copy out of the tape deck and taped over it with silence (you can thank me later, Thorsten!)