At the New Hope Baptist Church in Newark, New Jersey, Whitney had one last amazing performance left. As she serenaded herself out of her childhood church, her lyrics described her time with us. And as the last of the physical Whitney was carried out, the eternal Whitney carried on: "Bittersweet memories that is all I'm taking with me." It is also what she left behind for us to resolve.

Whitney's life and unexplained death is another chance to consider how we create celebrity but bring it down, flaw by flaw. We applaud as they play dress-up and then strip-search their character, analysing every flaw while still consuming the talent.

Whitney resurfaces the battle between the way media and round-the-clock information broadcast create celebrity and the consequences when all that glitters is not gold. In the hands of bandwidth, celebrity can quickly turn to notoriety. On the one hand Whitney permits us to reconsider what has to be said and what is better left alone. On the other hand no one owns the responsibility for that judgment and if news travels fast, bad news has greater momentum.

In Whitney's life and death, there are remaining comparisons, local analogies and moments for introspection. Whitney's artistic success came out of a world where quality was gauged by record and ticket sales and earnings.

Beyond that Whitney herself was measured by an inherent likeability, amazing voice, talent and star power. But her after-life will be measured, graded and inevitably informed by media chatter and the sheer power of the technology which came just after Whitney's best years.

Much of Whitney's success was achieved without the now pervasive technology. That technology and the omnipresent media which rides upon it, did not come with user's manuals, codes of conduct and shutters. By nature it is invasive and indifferent.

So the same pervasiveness which enables modern-day stardom can rip it to pieces. The Internet does not on its own accord measure a person or story's value by facts, truth and credibility. The Internet world gauges significance by clicks and hits. And in a world measured by clicks and hits, we have to allow for overnight successes and one-hit wonders. But we also have to make space for the lack of diplomacy, standards and deference. What sells is sometimes more important than what hurts.

Just before he preached at Whitney's funeral, Pastor Marvin Winans mentioned that a lawyer had called his office earlier asking if he wanted property rights to what he would say at the funeral. It highlighted that even in death Whitney's world was a giddy but sometimes unbalanced world.

That world had no permanent balance, but was a perpetual motion of amazing talent and risky business; opportunities and opportunists; bright lights and also searchlights. And with her gone, everything from Whitney's life, death and interment has money-making and star-making power, of the fleeting kind, uncharacteristic of Whitney's legacy itself. There are also questions which are serious but indifferent to her celebrity and the adoration we have for her.

As if to show off the constant battle between adoring and examining, as Whitney's televised funeral ended, CNN questioned her ex-husband's earlier exit from the funeral. The death was a week-old story, without carrying power beyond the interment. Whitney's next venture lies in the forward-looking potential of news of family differences, estate disputes, fights over royalties and a child left behind.

But that apparent intrusion into Whitney's personal business must be weighed with the media's potential to power renewed music sales, a new movie and the commercial value to be derived from the sale of memories, associations, recollections and fabrications.

As much as the media absorbed the high points of Whitney's life, it assumes some responsibility for these other aspects of the star's life which remain: not all of it will be welcomed by adoring fans.

Another CNN host, Nancy Grace, did not miss out on Whitney's star power. In a now controversial televised statement just before the funeral, Grace declared a need to know "who pushed Whitney underneath that water" and "who let her go underneath that water". In the face of demands for an apology or retraction, Grace held her ground.

For those who continue to adore Whitney, the suggestion seemed tacky and self-promoting; but the reality is that the questions would, without Whitney, have been accepted as Nancy Grace in the normal course of her ranting and probing as a successful criminal defence attorney turned media host and celebrity. The question is not so much the appropriateness of what Grace said but the indifference demanded by the need to inform.

That indifference was evident the day after Whitney died. The gilded and glitzy put another star six Grammy awards high on the pedestal, some to push further up and some to tug down. If Whitney defined two generations with love, identification with pain fuels Adele's popularity. But at the extreme ends of emotions, Whitney and Adele give cause for the same question: can anyone survive celebrity with the world constantly viewing?

And in Whitney's short time with us, the other question is how far we go with our adoration and how deep with our incisions.

As we continuously search for that balance between publicity, privacy, the sacrosanct and the need to know, the public consumes megabytes of trivia and overlook gigabytes of greatness. As the public consumes with reverence and irreverence, we wonder whether the inherent nature of celebrity is too much for anyone to carry for any length of time.

Kevin Costner described that celebrity as the inexplicable burden that comes with fame. At that New Hope Baptist Church Costner also said "off you go Whitney, off you go", while we watched, examined and turned the ex-husband's hasty exit from her funeral into a celebrity story.

* Clarence Rambharat is an

attorney and university lecturer.