Death Of Journalism Of Death

A particularly sports journalist- Richard Durrett of ESPN- died the other day. As I'd never heard of him, I don't know why I clicked on the link to the first article I saw except that I imagined he was likely an old veteran who'd covered a lot of the big stories over the years, or at least those pertaining to Dallas, where he operated. I found instead that he was 38, and with widened eyes, I read on to learn what cause of death claimed him so young.

The article did not say, though it went on for nine paragraphs. Now, if you don't know why, you don't know, but it seems logical to me that you would say at some point that a cause of death was not established or announced immediately (or, as they would have said before the internet, 'as of press time'). I don't happen to think it's ever reasonable to ignore the cause of death, but it is least excusable when someone relatively young dies. I can guess for myself why an 85 year-old might have died, but a 38 year-old demands explanation.

Another article was more free with their information. They allowed for the fact that the death was a sudden and unexpected one, and even stated that people were talking about how it was a brain aneurysm. I was glad I didn't have to did any further than that, but the author of that article only aroused my ire in another way. The first words of the article declared that 'this is horrible news'. It drives me nuts when someone feels they have to say that.

It is, of course, not a very objective thing to say, first of all. I don't expect people to side with me on that account, but it's a fact. I don't happen to think it's for the writer to opine on what news is good and what news is not good. I value the journalist's ability to marshal and to express the facts. I put no stock in their beliefs whatsoever except for those that pertain to the discharge of their duties. In addition to who, what, when, why, where and how there is no 'is it good'.

Maybe you'll say this is a case of the journalist saying it's bad because there's no possibility of it not being bad in the reader's eyes- that journalistic objectivity doesn't apply here. I personally find it offensive that someone considers it necessary to educate me on how someone dying suddenly at a young age is a bad thing. I'm not dumb or a sociopath, and I know what's bad without having to receive a lesson like a child or Frankenstein's monster.

Well, you can see that I'm not above losing my temper over a very small thing in the news. Clearly I'm very ready for the long, idle hours of retirement when a heavy investment in such things as the news is about all that can occupy one's mind. Perhaps you will say that I have too much free time on my hands, which is nothing I haven't heard before. I could get a tattoo on my chest of someone derisively telling me I've put a lot of thought into something. Anyway, here was something I thought a lot about.