Representing Death in the News Journalism, Media and Mortality Folker Hanusch Representing Death in the News This page intentionally left blank Representing Death in the News Journalism, Media and Mortality Folker Hanusch © Folker Christian Hanusch 2010 All rights reserved No reproduction, copy or transmission of this publication may be made without written permission No portion of this publication may be reproduced, copied or transmitted save with written permission or in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, or under the terms of any licence permitting limited copying issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency, Saffron House, 6-10 Kirby Street, London EC1N 8TS Any person who does any unauthorized act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages The author has asserted his right to be identified as the author of this work in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 First published 2010 by PALGRAVE MACMILLAN Palgrave Macmillan in the UK is an imprint of Macmillan Publishers Limited, registered in England, company number 785998, of Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS Palgrave Macmillan in the US is a division of St Martin’s Press LLC, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010 Palgrave Macmillan is the global academic imprint of the above companies and has companies and representatives throughout the world Palgrave® and Macmillan® are registered trademarks in the United States, the United Kingdom, Europe and other countries ISBN-13: 978–0–230–23046–0 hardback This book is printed on paper suitable for recycling and made from fully managed and sustained forest sources Logging, pulping and manufacturing processes are expected to conform to the environmental regulations of the country of origin A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library A catalog record for this book is available from the Library of Congress 10 19 18 17 16 15 14 13 12 11 10 Printed and bound in Great Britain by CPI Antony Rowe, Chippenham and Eastbourne For my parents This page intentionally left blank Contents Acknowledgments viii Introduction A History of News about Death 13 How News Media Place Values on Life 35 Visual Displays of Death 55 The Impact of Covering Traumatic Assignments 79 Audience Responses to Death in the News 99 Journalism’s Role in Constructing Grief 125 Representing Death in the Online Age 145 Conclusion 161 Bibliography 172 Index 193 vii Acknowledgments Book projects are never strictly the work of one person alone, and this one is no different I have been fortunate enough to have had the support of a number of people, without whom it is unlikely this book project would have come to fruition First and foremost, I thank my wife and son, who have, especially over the last two months before completion of the manuscript, been an eternal source of encouragement and moral support Most importantly, they have been more than understanding when I needed to shut myself away in order to work on the manuscript Weekends with daddy will now return Thanks also go to my parents, without whom none of this would have been possible This book is dedicated to them, because they taught me to follow my dreams, which unfortunately meant I ended up living a long way away To their credit, they have coped well At Palgrave Macmillan I would like to thank everyone involved in this project, which began more than two years ago: Renee Takken, Catherine Mitchell and especially commissioning editor Christabel Scaife, who saw the potential in this project and encouraged me to develop it further I owe my gratitude to the three anonymous reviewers; their constructive feedback alerted me to a number of issues and helped me refine the project Special thanks is due to Levi Obijiofor, who has been a close mentor during my entire life in academia and who, despite the short notice, read through the entire manuscript to give me detailed and valuable feedback His undying encouragement for my work has been a constant source of energy I would further like to thank my boss Stephen Lamble, Head of the School of Communication at the University of the Sunshine Coast, who was extremely supportive of my project in many ways My appreciation also goes out to Barbie Zelizer, who allowed me a look at the manuscript of her latest work, About to die: How news images move the public I have the greatest admiration for her work on the way in which journalism deals with death Finally, I would like to thank the journal Media International Australia for allowing me to re-use parts of a paper I wrote on Steve Irwin’s death in this book The article’s publication details are: Hanusch, Folker (2009) ‘ “The Australian we all aspire to be”: Commemorative journalism and the death of the Crocodile Hunter’, Media International Australia, 130, pp 28–38 viii Introduction The news media these days seem to be full of reports about death and destruction When Time magazine published its list of the top 10 news stories for 2009, all but two included tales of destruction and death There was the ongoing war in Afghanistan, which experienced a dramatic surge in Coalition casualties In Iran, a protester made worldwide news when her death was broadcast around the world on YouTube A lone gun man rampaged through the US military base at Fort Hood, taking 12 lives in the process and wounding many others Pakistan was an ongoing site for terrorist attacks and fighting between the Taliban and military forces In the escalating drug war in Mexico 1800 murders were committed in the first nine months of 2009 alone Then there was the swine flu pandemic, which killed well over 10,000 people worldwide and almost caused mass panic as governments around the globe attempted to stop it from spreading The year 2009 also saw the end of the civil war in Sri Lanka, which over the course of 26 years had killed more than 70,000 people And finally, of course, there was one death that possibly generated the most amount of news coverage In 2009, the ‘King of Pop’ Michael Jackson died, spawning countless stories, public expressions of grief, and completely dominating the news for days These stories not even include the 173 people killed in the most deadly bushfires in Australian history, or the more than 300 who perished in the devastating earthquake in the Italian town of L’Aquila Nor they feature the mysterious crash of an Air France airbus over the Atlantic Ocean, in which 228 people lost their lives, or the more than 1000 who died in an earthquake on the Indonesian island of Sumatra and the 115 who were killed when a tsunami hit the islands of Samoa Not to mention over 4000 Americans who had died during Operation Iraqi Freedom by the end of 2009 ... chapter examines and integrates the general debates about the presence of death in the public sphere By examining and critiquing the differing viewpoints about the historical development of the presence... increasingly visible again and is making its way back into social consciousness This book examines the ways in which the news media play a part in this, how they represent death and the role they... that ? ?the mediated sharing of the stories of strangers’ deaths may be the most common death experience in modern culture’ Indeed, there seems to be an increasingly visible level of death and dying