A funny thing happened with the death of Whitney Houston last night. Not haha funny like Stevie Wonder ad-libbing "Knowing you can always count on Steve" in his live rendition with Whitney. More like a sad and perverse funny that would be funnier if it didn't occur every single time someone famous passed away.
Houston died, and there was a mad rush to sum up every single contribution and impact she had in the world of music. Helicopters hovered over the Beverly Hilton while each news station offered a contradictory and often erroneous report of the proceedings.
She was still in the room, she wasn't in the room. The party was cancelled, it wasn't cancelled. There was no sign of drug use, but drugs played a big part in her life. Etc, etc. I even heard that the Beverly Hilton was across from the Staples Center, which would be tantamount to saying that Dr. Dre grew up across the street from the Real Housewives of Beverly Hills.
In the last half a year we lost three individuals where the news was wildly out of control when reporting: Steve Jobs, Joe Paterno and now Houston. In each case, the press was quick to assign value to the person's life or were completely erroneous in their reports.... or both.
Steve Jobs went from being mentioned zero times in daily conversation to the greatest inventor since Thomas Edison. Joe Paterno was reported dead when he was actually still alive. Houston is the greatest female pop star ever when I know of a friend who saw her in the past couple years and said it was depressing how shitty her voice was due to her drug abuse.
This isn't to say that I want the press to ignore all the good and focus in on all the bad. I'd rather they just let someone rest in peace, as the ubiquitous saying would go. Instead, we have memorials that mean absolutely nothing. MSNBC didn't tell me anything about Houston that I didn't already know....and that is sort of the point. If someone is famous enough to have their death covered on TV, then there's probably not much that isn't known about the person in the first place.
What's more interesting to consider is how this over-reaction and fast reporting came from. We currently live in a time with twitter, 900 news channels and information at the tips of our fingertips. It wasn't always this way though, and because of that, news and reporting wasn't always the same.
In my opinion, there are three monumental reporting events in the past 50 years. They are: JFK's assassination, the Munich Massacre and the Watergate Scandal. I say that these three events are the biggest reporting events because in each case, we can associate a reporter with the incident.
We all know the look of Walter Cronkite peering over his glasses as he announced JFK dead. We know Jim McKay's famous words of "they're all gone." Woodward and Bernstein became mega-celebrities based on their investigation into Watergate. After that, it all changed.
The technology is one thing, but the star status ascribed to Woodward and Bernstein was another. Now journalists realized that they could be celebrities in addition to reporters. They could have hollywood films made after them where Robert Redford played them. All of a sudden, it wasn't just report the news, it was make the news.
This lead to many erroneous reports and failed attempts to make something newsworthy. E.g., Geraldo opening up Al Capone's vault. Or Geraldo drawing up plans during Desert Storm. Or Geraldo falling down due to a tidal wave. Poor Geraldo.
Therefore its a perfect storm. We don't need news reported to us the same way that we did in 1960, and theres reporters out there making shit up so that they can be the first to report it.
I'll illustrate by asking this simple question. 9/11 was the biggest event of my lifetime. Like with the Kennedy Assassination, people remember where they were when hearing about the attack. 3,000 people died, 1,000 times more than Steve Jobs, Whitney Houston and Joe Paterno combined.
We all know the story. Do you remember what channel you watched 9/11 on? DO you remember who reported it first? Do you remember any significant announcements or declarations from reporters that day?
Me either. The same could be said for the first world trade center bombing, the OKC bombing, the Exxon Valdez oil spill, Chernobyl, the Challenger Explosion, WACO, the death of Princess Di or Hurricane Katrina. We have options of where to get our news now, and we don't care where we get it, as long as it's right.
Yet all the reporters are still living in a 1960s ideology. They are going under the idea that they'll be celebrities in a post-Watergate world, but they think that the world works like 1963. It doesn't, we dont know who you are and dont care about you Mr/Ms. Reporter.
This leads to erroneous reports like JoePa being pronounced dead. He's 109 years old. He has lung cancer. He's being given last rights. I don't need to know the exact second he died and I'm not going to remember who reported it first. It was obvious he was going to die within a day. Whenever it happened, it happened.
It leads to statements like "shocking." Again, Paterno's death was far from a surprise. And if you think that a 49 year old who abused hard drugs most of her life dying is shocking, then you need to go back to 5th grade health class. Drugs kill you. Its the lesson between wash your hands and put a condom on your weiner.
This leads to reporters interviewing random people on the street. All of a sudden I'm watching some fat lady I've never seen before say that she remembers her for "that movie with Kevin Costner." You and about 90,000,000 other people, although most of them probably remember the title. What's the point of this? Why don't I just walk to in-n-out and start asking strangers what they think?
This also leads to everyone being their own mini-journalist on facebook or twitter. Guess what...you don't have any special connection with Whitney. You're not the only one who enjoys her music, you're not the only one who owns an Apple, and you're not the only one who watched Penn State football in the past 40 years. When it gets to this point, I'd almost you rather write weird obituaries to your grandma so people can awkwardly "like them."
Reporters try to put celebrity death into perspective, report breaking news and be respectful all at the same time. The problem is that it is impossible to do all three. Let the fans watching at home create their own perspective of what Whitney meant to them.
Beyond that, you can't be respectful and report breaking news at the same time. Why? Because the definition of respect at a time like this would be to leave her alone. I certainly wouldn't want my death reported out to millions of people while they speculate on bull while I lie face down in a hotel room. If I was murdered, maybe...but then we're disrespecting my body. It's impossible.
If I had my way, I'd rather that every celebrity death was reported and that's it. We have great things like wikipedia and YouTube where I can go and research a person's life more if I didn't know much about them. Then I can assign my own level of significance to their life.
Instead, we got helicopters flying over a building, zooming in on random floors, and fools acting like the biggest Houston fan of all-time when the name hasn't come out of their mouth in years.
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