MashGet

Michael Jackson was the first great pop star whose career was shaped by television -- not merely showcased by it, like those of Elvis Presley and the Beatles, but inseparable from the medium. He was indebted to it and influenced it in turn. Across his four-decade career, he was often someone to listen to, but he was always -- for better and sometimes for worse -- something to see. A lifetime of pictures came back into focus on the day of his death, as cable news outlets ran bits of old videos and Facebook bloomed with links to YouTube clips.