In February 1959, a plane crash claimed the life of rockers Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens and J.P. Richardson (aka the Big Bopper). In the 1987 biopic "La Bamba," Valens' family is shown finding out about his death not from investigators or other officials, but from news reports on the radio. In the nearly half century since, laws and newsroom policies have changed (for the better) to make sure a victim's family finds out about a death before it's released to the media. But more than 47 years later, history repeated itself to some degree when Major League pitcher Cory Lidle died Wednesday when his plane crashed into a New York City high-rise.

While watching the coverage of the crash that freaked out many New Yorkers still wary from the attacks on the World Trade Center five years ago, I was shocked that media outlets reported Lidle's death even though they knew his family did not yet know. In fact, during ESPN's SportsCenter, reporter Jeremy Schaap talked about Lidle being the victim while also saying that Lidle's wife and six-year-old son were still aboard a commercial flight to California and did not yet know. Let's hope they were not flying JetBlue or another airline that features live television onboard. Imagine being 35,000 feet over the middle of the US and finding out from the TV in the seatback in front of you that your husband or father is dead. Once again the desire to scoop or at least keep up with the competition led many respected news outlets to through ethics, responsibility and respect out the window.

Media coverage of famous people's death never ceases to amaze me. Not only do the media often forget about the standards they would use in covering any other story involving a death, but they also often find ways to over-glamorize the victim. Obviously, few people are going to come forward and negatively eulogize someone. But I was surprised that Lidle suddenly became a "baseball star" in stories about the crash. Derek Jeter, Roger Clemens and Albert Pujols are stars. Lidle was at best a No. 3 starter with mediocre to average pitching skills. That fact does not make his death any less important or notable. Far from it. I just hate the way someone's death seems to wash away all the negatives and suddenly thrust them into some glorious homage. Sure, we'd all like to be remembered only for the good things about us or the good we did in life. But the reality is that we are all flawed people. We are complete packages with plusses and minuses, all of which help define us or what we did in life.

My point is that this story became bigger than it would have been on its own simply because Lidle played professional baseball. But considering most people had probably never heard of him before yesterday, it is the responsibility of the media to provide a little better context of who he was, even if it's not all positive. Heck, before his death, Lidle may have best been known for his war of words with former teammates in Philadelphia after he was traded to the Yankees in July. If we as journalists want you to care about this story, we need to give you more of the context needed for you to care. But as many of my industry colleagues proved yesterday, doing what's right is often less important than hyping something up, even revealing a dead man's identity when you know his wife and son still don't know about their loss.