Journalism in a Culture of Grief

Carolyn Kitch, Janice Hume

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2012
• ISBN:
  9781135862138
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Languages & Linguistics
• Subtopic: Communication Studies
• Index: Languages & Linguistics

This book considers the cultural meanings of death in American journalism and the role of journalism in interpretations and enactments of public grief, which has returned to an almost Victorian level. A number of researchers have begun to address this growing collective preoccupation with death in modern life; few scholars, however, have studied the central forum for the conveyance and construction of public grief today: news media. News reports about death have a powerful impact and cultural authority because they bring emotional immediacy to matters of fact, telling stories of real people who die in real circumstances and real people who mourn them. Moreover, through news media, a broader audience mourns along with the central characters in those stories, and, in turn, news media cover the extended rituals. Journalism in a Culture of Grief examines this process through a range of types of death and types of news media. It discusses the reporting of horrific events such as September 11 and Hurricane Katrina; it considers the cultural role of obituaries and the instructive work of coverage of teens killed due to their own risky behaviors; and it assesses the role of news media in conducting national, patriotic memorial rituals.

I

Disaster, Trauma, and
Respect for the Dead

1

AT WAR WITH NATURE

Coverage of Natural Disaster Fatalities

All deaths are sudden, even if long expected. In one moment is life; the next, death. Yet the random and violent loss of life during natural disasters seems particularly newsworthy, those sudden deaths especially tragic. When an earthquake in San Francisco or tornadoes in Kansas wreak multiple fatalities, communities small and large share the stories and, to varying degrees, experience the grief. The element of surprise, the bitter and surprisingly egalitarian role of chance in determining death and survival, and the turmoil of recovery are all part of the story. And though natures violence often takes victims by surprise, covering it becomes almost routine for reporters who train and plan for disasters. Indeed, the Dart Center for Journalism and Trauma notes that “the majority of journalists witness traumatic events in their line of work,” including natural disasters (Smith & Newman, 2005). It follows that journalists would tell similar stories at disaster sites, often invoking the same kinds of metaphor and cultural-historical context. News coverage of disasters, according to Katherine Fry, who wrote about television reporting of the Midwest floods of 1993 and 1995, “is a socioculturally sanctioned form of telling and, through a unique format, constructs its own reality” (2003, p. 138). This chapter examines some of the shared stories of deadly natural disasters, to seek to understand their function in the social construction of death.

The role of journalism during a disaster is complex, and coverage can inspire both criticism and praise. The Christian Science Monitor, following the Asian tsunami of 2004, wrote about “How to tell the story of the dead without offending the living.” It noted “a wave of criticism” of the press from those who called coverage of the tsunami a “corpse show” or “disaster porn.” The article explained that the audience's proximity to a disaster can determine how graphic the coverage of deaths will be “and warned 'that the line between'” exploitation and depiction of reality can be a hair's breadth of opinion (Leach, 2005, p. 11). William C. Adams criticized the Western media's ethnocentrism. He wrote: “Overall, the globe is prioritized so that the death of one Western European equaled three Eastern Europeans equaled 9 Latin Americans equaled 11 Middle Easterners equaled 12 Asians” (1986, p. 122). Aaron Parrett noted the U.S. media's neglect and sparse coverage of the effects of a deadly 1964 flood on the Blackfeet Indian Reservation in Montana. It reflected, he argued, “the dominant culture's tendency to minimize or overlook such events when the worst of the damage is experienced by a minority population” (2004, p. 23). Such neglect, even if subconscious, can suppress the history of minority groups: “Main-stream media accounts of events become the semi-official narratives that eventually emerge as 'standard' history, a process that overwhelms minority voices as the event is articulated and retold” (p. 31).

Yet the psychiatrist Beverley Raphael acknowledges the positive role of media coverage of tragedy in natural disasters. One way victims gain “mastery” over feelings of fear, shock, and helplessness, she says, is “giving testimony,” including through interviews with news media (1986, p. 94). Talking to press and sharing “communal rituals, ceremonies, celebrations, and public statements may also be vehicles for individual and group release of feeling,” which aids in recovery (p. 95). In fact, the simple act of recognizing that victims have suffered provides, at the most basic level, “psychosocial care for disaster-affected people and communities,” she writes (p. 245). The media's human-interest stories “are likely to underscore the suffering and need of the affected community. This media attention again indicates to victims that their plight is being taken seriously” (p. 246).

The news media, particularly television meteorologists, work to warn audiences of impending disaster, and much of the scholarly attention paid to press coverage of disasters has been on its ability “to influence people's preparedness and response.” But according to Maria Perez-Lugo, media serve important functions through all phases of disaster, perhaps most of all during the actual event (2004). Her study of hurricane coverage found that the press provided emotional support and companionship, created a sense of community, and connected isolated individuals with the outside world. “During the impact of the hurricane, the media-audience relationship was motivated more by the people's need for emotional support, companionship, and community ties, than for their need for official information” (p. 219).

Beyond the immediate informational and social function, press coverage of disasters teaches cultural lessons. Fry notes: “News functions to capture and canonize certain historic events and moments. ... Journalists and news organizations become cultural authorities, authorized to shape, interpret, and present certain events and phenomena.” She argues that both the form and content of news shape “our collective understanding and memory of how these natural phenomena ought to be regarded, and how nature should behave.” Television coverage of the Midwest floods “visually presented them as battles with Mother Nature in the mythic heartland” (2003, p. 137). She writes: “Nature was pitted as the enemy against human (particularly Midwestern) victims who were constructed as a collective protagonist fighting in solidarity against the waters' onslaught” (p. 138).

Ted Steinberg argues that this tendency to regard natural disasters as “morally inert phenomena—chance events that lie beyond the control of human beings” enables political inaction and helps to preserve a particular set of social relations (2000, p. xxiii). Irene Ledesma, in her historical study of community survival following natural disasters, charges that U.S. historians “have long ignored the social and political implications of natural disasters” and suggests that disasters be considered a social as well as a natural force (1994, p. 73). “We will go further in understanding the past when we stop treating natural disasters as capricious acts of God and view them instead as the politically consequential affairs they really are” (p. 82).

All death stories are potent and provocative, and examining them tells us something about American culture and values. In particular, scholars have pointed to “sudden deaths” that elicit a set of cultural responses, including the establishment of bereavement communities, heightened feelings of guilt and the need to assign blame for a crisis (Fast, 2003, p. 285). Thus far, the literature on “sudden deaths” has focused more on human-caused tragedies, such as the 1999 murders at Columbine High School, and not on disasters of nature.

The question becomes: How does the press tell the story of natural disasters, particularly those that cause large numbers of fatalities? This chapter examines local, regional, and national coverage of natural disasters that occurred in 1989, 1991, 1994, 1995, 1997 and 1999, in California, Oklahoma, Texas, Kansas, North Dakota and South Dakota. Included were 154 newspaper articles and 31 abstracts of network broadcasts reporting selected earthquakes, tornadoes, and blizzards that killed at least 20 people. This coverage appeared in The Washington Post, USA Today, The St. Louis Post-Dispatch, The St. Petersburg Times, The Topeka Capital-Journal, The Chicago Sun-Times, The Houston Chronicle, The New York Times, The Boston Herald, The San Francisco Chronicle, The Los Angeles Times, The Oklahoman, The Forum (Fargo, ND), The Wichita Eagle, The Argus Leader (Sioux Falls, SD), and The Dallas Morning News, and on ABC, CBS, NBC, and CNN. Coverage was accessed via LexisNexis, the Vanderbilt Television Archives, online archives at individual newspapers, and microfilm of those newspapers not available electronically (scrolled by dates of the disasters).

COUNTING THE DEAD

Accurately reporting the number of fatalities caused by a disaster is one of the first and most difficult tasks for journalists. The chaotic situation at the scene and problems with power outages and damaged phone lines or cell towers make it difficult for rescue workers and the press to determine and then communicate who might be dead, or simply missing. For example, the day after a devastating earthquake struck Northern California in 1989, The Washington Post told readers “the total number of dead and injured could not be established early today in the widespread confusion that followed the sudden shock of the quake. At sites of collapses throughout the area, rescue personnel worked by flashlight in the darkness to search for victims or extricate them from the rubble” (Weil, 1989, p. Al). In Oklahoma in May 1999, following “an evening of terror” as “tornado after tornado battered the state,” The Oklahoman reported “the vastness of the destruction and seemingly endless barrage of tornadoes left officials unable to determine the exact number of dead or injured” (Ellis, 1999, p. Al).

Yet as this sample of disaster coverage indicates, establishing a concrete toll becomes increasingly important, and following most significant events, government officials and the press soon begin to speculate on the number of dead, often overestimating. Two days after that 1989 earthquake, The San Francisco Chronicle reported a grim prediction: “State officials put the death tally at more than 200, but yesterday they called that count only an estimate.' They said about 30 bodies have been recovered but conceded the count would probably climb dramatically” (Shilts & Sward, 1989b, p. Al). Estimates reached as high as 250 for potential fatalities on a particular stretch of the Nimitz Freeway that collapsed during that earthquake—CBS Evening News, among others, reported that more than 200 people were killed—yet when the dust settled, the number of dead was 41 (Bowen & Rather, 1989). The San Francisco Chronicle noted: “In a series of interviews, officials are blaming unadulterated chaos for the huge miscalculations published around the world” (Carlsen, 1989, p. A17). As one official noted: “We were shooting from the hip. ... A microphone was pushed in our faces every 10 minutes, and we responded the best we could” (p. A17). The newspaper, as well as CBS, speculated that the number of cars on the road was probably fewer than had been predicted because commuters had hurried home early to watch baseball's World Series on television (Blackstone, Bowen & Rather, 1989).

Ten years later, in the aftermath of a deadly tornado in Oklahoma, USA Today reported that officials “still were struggling ... to assess its toll—particularly in human lives” and noted the scene was too chaotic to know whether everyone had been found (Weiberg, 1999a, Amid chaos, p. A4). The paper reported 100 people missing, but noted “officials still were trying to determine who among them might have died and who might just be away” (Wieberg, 1999a, Residents, p. A4). NBC Nightly News also voiced concerns that the death toll would rise (Avila, Brokaw, Cummins & Williams, 1999). But eventually in the arc of disaster coverage, estimated death tolls begin to come down in number, as well as the official reports. For example, in Andover, Kansas, following a tornado in 1991 that destroyed a mobile home park, the official death tally dropped “as authorities identified bodies and discovered that some fatalities had been counted more than once,” according to The St. Louis Post-Dispatch (Twister death toll, 1991, p. A10). Fatality estimates following a tornado in Wichita, Kansas, began “falling ... as residents who had fled to shelters succeeded in locating each other” (Manning, 1999).

As journalists attempted, despite significant difficulties, to attach a death toll to these tragedies, at least in some instances they tried to provide a kind of context or comparison. They reported that a Los Angeles earthquake in 1994 was not as deadly as the San Francisco quake of 1989, which, according to multiple reports, was not as devastating as the historic earthquake that destroyed the latter city in 1906. CBS noted that Californians were still waiting for “the big one” (Bowen, Chung, Hughes, Rather, Threlkeld & Whitaker, 1994). USA Today, following deadly 1999 storms in Oklahoma and Kansas, provided statistics on the number of tornado deaths by year and the highest tornado death tolls historically, including storms in 1925 that killed 689 people in Missouri, Illinois, and Indiana, and tornadoes that killed 317 in Natchez, Mississippi, in 1840 (Sharp, 1999, p. A19).

MORE THAN NUMBERS

Statistics, of course, were only a small part of these disaster stories. Journalists struggled to describe the deaths, to give “causes” beyond just the earthquake, or tornado, or blizzard. Sometimes these descriptions were not specific to an individual person. Following the 1989 earthquake, The San Francisco Chronicle told readers of fatalities in the city's warehouse district: “The causes of death ranged from decapitation to severe blood loss. Most of the victims were in their cars, leaving work, when caught in the avalanche of falling bricks and mortar from the building” (Shilts & Sward, 1989a, p. Al). Another article began with a generalization (“There are as many ways to die in an earthquake as there are frailties in our flesh. Bricks crush, metal cuts. Sheer terror can stop the human heart”), then continued with information about specific victims killed in collapsed buildings or on the freeway (Robertson, 1989, p. A4). The Forum, in Fargo, North Dakota, told readers of deaths and injuries from frostbite, exposure, and carbon monoxide poisoning during the harsh winter of 1997. It then assigned specific causes to names of the deceased, including a 40-year-old woman whose car went into a ditch, a 26-year-old man who fell through a roof while shoveling snow, and a 41-year-old who walked away from his stranded pick-up truck and died from exposure (Crawford, 1997, p. Al). Similarly, The Dallas Morning News, following a deadly storm, listed victims by name and causes: a 68-year-old woman drowned, a 26 year old crushed, a teenager hit by lightning (1995, p. A31). Network television coverage typically listed just numbers of deaths, though sometimes victims' relatives or friends described singular deaths in more detail (see, as an example, Lewis & Schneider, 1994).

The violent nature of many natural disaster fatalities made describing them problematic. The events were newsworthy, and the journalists attempted to describe accurately the horrific conditions, yet they seemed uncomfortable with graphic descriptions of victims. In these cases, property damage became a metaphor, a tool for describing deaths of people. Network television coverage, of course, did not broadcast images of bodies but showed scenes of damaged buildings and flattened highways while discussing fatalities. Newspapers, with their verbal pictures, did the same thing. The San Francisco Chronicle, reporting the rescue and recovery operations on the collapsed highway, noted that “some cars, flattened by thousands of pounds of concrete, were just 12 inches high” and quoted workers who said that the victims under the rubble were “unable to escape injury” (Sandalow & Congbalay, 1989, p. A5). The same newspaper quoted a police officer:

He saw cars that were turned into tombstone-like wedges of steel 18-inches thick. “I knew...that there were (dead) people inside. I wondered who they were, what they had looked like, where they were going. It was numbing. (Bizjak & Sandalow, 1989, p. Al)

Numerous articles following tornadoes in Kansas, Texas, and Oklahoma reported deaths by describing property damage. For example, a 50-year-old woman “died of injuries she sustained when a tornado destroyed her home” (Cramer, 1999b, p. 11). A husband and wife died in 1995 “when a tornado picked up their home and dropped it across the street” (Tornadoes hit state, 1995, p. 12). The Wichita Eagle described a man “found face down in water and debris from the storm. Nearby stood the remains of a twisted trailer's hull and a tree snapped in two” (Wenzl & Elliott, 1999, p. Al).

In some instances, newspaper coverage of these disasters did describe in greater detail the bodies of victims and the anguish of family members. The Houston Chronicle, in an article titled “Terror on the Plains,” related a man's description of his father's death: “A minivan lifted by the tornado crashed through the wall and roof, crushing his fathers head and chest” (Sallee, 1999, p. A25). The Topeka Capital-Journal described an infant, “not yet a month old, who looked like a doll lying on top of wood nails, tree branches, and other debris” (Man dies, 1999). An 80-year-old Oklahoma woman died “after a week of treatment for a head injury and crushing-type injuries” (Plumberg, 1999, p. Al). Relating the aftermath of a Los Angeles earthquake, one article quoted an emergency technician:

He said the worst thing he saw was a woman “still alive, lying face down on her king-size bed. A beam had fallen across her,” he said. Unable to move it... he ran for help, returning a few minutes later only to find her dead. “These people had 4 seconds to get out. They had no time. They were just grinded in there.” (Apartment complex, 1994, p. A6)

The Wichita Eagle related the anguish of discovering the dead, quoting a witness who said she “will never forget the scream. ... The cry began suddenly, then filled the air over Andover like a sorrowful testimony to the surrounding destruction. It was the reaction of a woman uncovering her dead husband” (Perez, 1991, p. All). Other articles reported the identification of victims by family at a temporary morgue (“That's my father and my brother. Oh, my God, oh, my God, what am I supposed to do?”) or the moment when a family member, still hoping for her child's rescue, was told the bad news (“Ma'am, listen to me. Your son, how old is your son? ... This son is dead, ma'am. He is dead.”) (Fitzgerald, 1991, p. A15; O'Neill & Chu, 1994, p. Al).

Sometimes coverage described the moments of death, as related by witnesses, including a “3-week-old... who was sucked from his mother's arms when the storm raged,” a man electrocuted by a power line while attempting to rescue a child trapped by earthquake debris (“...

Table of contents

• Front Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction
• PART I: DISASTER, TRAUMA, AND RESPECT FOR THE DEAD
• PART II: LESSONS LEARNED FROM LIFE STORIES
• PART III: THE JOURNALISM OF RITUAL AND TRIBUTE
• Conclusion
• Notes
• References
• Index