Aug 28


The pornography of suffering

by Terry 28 August 2006


The media loves a tragedy. They got one in living and dying color yesterday morning when Comair Flight 5191 crashed on take-off in Lexington, KY. Of 50 passengers and crew, 49 died. CNN lost no time in intruding upon the families’ grief. Note these quotes from their article Honeymooners among crash victims POSTED: 10:48 p.m. EDT, August 27, 2006 on their website:

“It’s so tragic because he was so happy last night,” said Keith Madison, who coached Hooker’s baseball team at the University of Kentucky and attended the wedding. “It’s just an incredible turn of events. It’s really painful.”

…

Williams began his career working with polo ponies in Dayton, Ohio, and was hired as an assistant trainer at Woodburn Farm. He worked with 10 stakes winners for the farm, including Astrotot, Ohio’s 2-year-old champion in 1985.

Larry Turner of Lexington, also aboard the plane, was the chief officer overseeing the University of Kentucky’s extension service, according to a statement from the university.

Pat Smith, a member of Habitat for Humanity International’s Board of Directors, was on his way to Gulfport, Mississippi, to work on rebuilding houses, Habitat spokesman Duane Bates said.

Mike Finley, 52, who lived in Corbin and owned the Finley Fun Centers, was headed to Reno, Nevada, for a rollerskating convention, said his son, David Taylor.

“I’d say there’s thousands of kids who grew up with our father,” he said.

Would it have been less tragic if he’d been depressed? If he wasn’t newly married, or wasn’t married at all? If he didn’t have a lot of friends or an important job?

But here’s the telling quote:

A woman who answered the phone at Lykins’ home said she was aware of Lykins’ death and didn’t want to talk.

What if she’d said, no, she hadn’t heard about it? I’m sure that would have resulted in a lovely quote for the story.

What the hell were they doing calling the families when they’re most vulnerable? Worse, they’re placing value on individual lives based on their relationship to others and defining their new-worthiness based on crap like “He loved life” and other banalities. And what of those who had no one to publicly mourn them? Their deaths don’t rate a passing mention.

I’m disgusted. Sherry Chandler coined the term quoted the phrase “pornography of suffering” in reference to poetry. It’s rampant in the news and it’s exploitation, pure and simple. How do reporters justify this to themselves? “The people’s right to know” is bullshit. We do not have the right to be inside someone’s head in their grief and I don’t want the media claiming they do it for me. It’s not just bad taste — it’s obscene.

There’s no honor in this type of reporting and those who demand it–as well as those who do it–are pornographers.

Enough is enough.

11 Comments

11 Responses to “The pornography of suffering”

  1. Bluegrass Poet on August 28th, 2006 10:26 am

    I agree with every word of this post, Terry, especially as it happened here and the local press is even more gleefully ghoulish. We’re on the map! But in my alter-ego as Sherry Chandler I can’t take credit for coining the term “pornography of suffering.” I know I must have picked it up in a review of Donald Hall’s Without.  (Quote)

  2. Billie on August 28th, 2006 11:50 am

    I agree, too, Terry. Thanks for posting this as it does add perspective to a horrible incident.  (Quote)

  3. Lisa on August 28th, 2006 3:44 pm

    I was struck and never forgot during the days after 9/11, when the personal footage of the tragedy was all over the news, one man telling another, a stranger who held a camera on the first building as it burned and the people inside were forced to chose their manner of death, leaping out or dying from the fire inside, (at first when there was only smoke) “Look at that!! Are you seeing this?” Then later when the people appeared and fell “Ahhh… awwww, no… please, Son, don’t film this…” And the camera owner respectfully turned it off.

    I think this sentiment is one all feeling human beings share and it’s insulting how the media insinuates otherwise by shoving the details of other people’s sorrow in our faces. It would be enough to acknowledge the event and honor a person’s death by mentioning the life, not going on and on about how it was taken.

    While I’m on this pedestal, it wouldn’t surprise me when reporting future events of this nature if the press began categorizing the victims as “attractive” and “not attractive”, with extra point value for having a young baby at home, etc. It’s sickening. I get tired of the “they were so young and lovely, what a shame”, as if it’s somehow okay or even preferable that the single, unattractive, or elderly pass away instead.  (Quote)

  4. Terry on August 28th, 2006 8:13 pm

    I can only imagine your local press, Poet. I know mine would be terrible. Thanks for the correction on the phrase – I’ll add that to the entry.  (Quote)

  5. Terry on August 28th, 2006 8:16 pm

    Thanks, Billie. I’m so frustrated by what I’m seeing pass as news coverage that I just have to rage sometimes.  (Quote)

  6. Terry on August 28th, 2006 8:17 pm

    You’re no doubt right, Lisa, and it saddens me. The whole valuation of life is skewed into something I don’t recognize any more, or want to be a part of.  (Quote)

  7. decrepitoldfool on August 29th, 2006 7:07 am

    Every year I see articles about the “promising student” who died in a car crash on prom night. His or her GPA seems to be important; would the death mean less if (like me) they were a low-C student at their high school?  (Quote)

  8. Terry on August 29th, 2006 7:46 am

    You’re so right, DOF. The other one I see often here is when some young adult who is unemployed or working fast food is killed in a drive-by or murder, they’ve “turned their lifes around and were planning to go to college.” More of the same value judgment.  (Quote)

  9. Lynn on August 29th, 2006 4:07 pm

    I will never forget when the space shuttle disintegrated recently. There was a ghoul, excuse me, reporter crashing a memorial church service live in Texas. I was disgusted by it, and no I didn’t turn the channel because I couldn’t really believe it was happening. I remember thinking that it wasn’t just the reporter’s fault, but the fault of all the people who tune in to that (I was guilty, yes, but out of disbelief more than anything). I refuse to watch replays of the planes crashing into the towers, and I’ve never watched any of the videos of people jumping out the windows. I’m not going to see any of the 9/11 related movies either. It’s just too raw right now. Give it fifty years or so.

    The sad fact is that many, many people want this kind of coverage. It’s the same gene that makes people stare at auto accidents as they pass by.  (Quote)

  10. Terry on August 30th, 2006 8:28 am

    One of the networks, CNN I believe, is planning to run a repeat of all their 9/11 coverage on the anniversary of the tragedy. I’m not turning on my tv that day.  (Quote)

  11. Lynn on August 30th, 2006 12:18 pm

    Oh good Lord no. Not watching that, no way.  (Quote)

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