Journalism in a Culture of Grief

Abstract

Kitch, Carolyn and Janice Hume. Journalism in a Culture of Grief. New York: Routledge, 2008. 247 pp. $26.95. Each semester, I begin my Media History class by discussing September 11, asking my students what they temember from that day. While their individual stories start out differently, eventually they begin to sound alike as students talk about the media coverage of the attack. I use this exercise to demonstrate the important role that journalists play as eyewitnesses to history, how news consumption allows audiences to collectively experience an event, and how news coverage shapes our collective memory of historical events. Media coverage of September 11 is just one of several examples that Carolyn Kitch and Janice Hume examine in their book, Journalism in a Culture of Grief. This collection of ten essays looks at the role of journalism in public ideas about death, grief, and memorial in American society today. These case studies illustrate how news coverage seeks to explain death, offers a public forum for mourning, commemorates the deceased, and provides a sense of closure. However, the authors also examine larger theoretical issues, including journalistic authority, journalism's role in building community, journalists as historians, and journalism's influence on collective memory. The essays are grouped into three sections. The first deals with unusually traumatic deaths, including coverage of natural disasters, the scandals surrounding the disposals of bodies in the Tri-State Crematory case and following Hurricane Katrina, and the murder of five Amish girls in a schoolhouse shooting. In each case, reporters sought to explain what happened and to assign blame. The most interesting case is that of the Amish school shooting, where the community refused to blame the shooter, which went against the standard news script for school shootings. The second section focuses on the lessons learned from death. The stories of small-town residents told in obituaries, coverage of the Sago coal miners' deaths, and articles about the deaths of teens or celebrities all imply that we can learn from their examples, whether it is how to live the good life or what not to do. The tales of excess and redemption in stories about Johnny Cash, Ray Charles, Richard Pryor, and Marlon Brando are fascinating examples of the narrative structure of celebrity-death coverage. The final section deals with closure and the healing function of journalism. Coverage of September 11 and President Ronald Reagan's funeral are examples of the public mourning through the media, while stories about the opening of the World War II Memorial addressed the passing of the greatest generation and recognized their contributions. …

Cite this work

No public copy is stored for this record, so only the metadata is cited.

Stored only when both papers are in the corpus — 94 citations exist upstream.