What to make of Jade Goody

I'm really struggling to decide what my opinion is about Jade Goody, who died yesterday. Predictably the media coverage of her death has been extensive, almost to (if not beyond) the point of excess. But I cannot help but wonder whether, despite the fact that it was a Sunday when news is probably quieter than in mid-week, it warranted 'Top Story' status on both Sky News and the BBC website for most of the day.

Undeniably it is a tragedy for a young mother to die so young and with two young children. But all the coverage seems to be reporting what she "did" to help raise awareness of cervical cancer. To me, there is a difference between actually doing something and simply making people aware by living out the reality in public. Jade Goody did the latter. Is it correct to say that she "did so much good for the cause"? Or was it more that she was extremely unlucky to be inflicted with cancer yet by remaining in the spotlight of the reality television cameras in a manner not seen before she served to effectively shock the general female public into the action of getting checked themselves?

It was obviously Jade's decision to live out her final few days in the public eye, and maybe this is what is being regarded as her contribution to raising public awareness. But here's the reason why, for me, the jury is still out on what to make of all this - because it is unclear what the motives were of those who have been watching? Are those who bought Hello magazine, or the daily tabloids, or watched her wedding on TV as a means of feeding their hunger for the latest updates on her condition, to be considered generous contributors to Jade's chosen form of fund raising (for what good would her desire to maximise the publicity coverage of her condition in order to raise money for her sons' future have been if there were nobody interested in biting the hand that feeds them)?

Or rather are they to be considered the very worst form of reality TV addicts, blinded to their underlying mawkish desire to witness one woman's sad and impending death played out like a 24/7 TV show?

I once read Ben Elton's book "Dead Famous", which was published somewhere around the time that the 2nd or 3rd series of Big Brother was being televised in the UK. The fictional story was set in a Big Brother type house, where one of the housemates was murdered mid series. What followed was played out on TV as the show was allowed to continue, much to the glee of the producers behind the scenes. It was a good book as I recall, but whilst entertaining on one level, it was clearly also designed to raise clear questions on another level about the depths to which reality TV might sink. If the people who were laying flowers outside Jade Goody's house yesterday, many of whom were residents of her village but did not know her other than through seeing her on television, had read that book, I very much doubt that they would have spotted the second level.