Image: NY Daily newsFrazier (left) Ali (right)
Joe Frazier, a boxer who ruled the sport for years and was known as one of the only fighters able to challenge the G.O.A.T. (Muhammad Ali), past away yesterday at the age of 67.
He died after a long battle with liver cancer.
Smokin' Joe was no doubt a great fighter and will be remembered by many, who appreciate sports and great figures, however, his death really helps us.
From a news stand point, it was finally something else to talk about other than NBA lockouts and Pacman and Money acting like babies.
Death sells papers! Death is dark, sometimes gruesome and evil, and just plain sad, but as journalist we love it, we thrive on it and we just may need it. Our audience falls in love with these "hero's" like Frazier and when they died, our customers want to know. They want to know how he/she died, when, where etc... News is one big story, and people just want to keep up with the chapters.
I don't think I need an example for this, but here's one off the top of my head. Former Yankees owner George Steinbrenner. After he died, the media had so much work they were busy covering just that for days. Outside of sports does anybody remember how much work the media had for the month after Michael Jackson died. Point proven.
Frazier's death marks the loss of a great person who excelled in their field, but man does it generate work for us. I saw Frazier's death reported by just about every newspaper, TV station, and media department everywhere on twitter first. Then it was on websites minutes later. And this morning it was everywhere, even made the front page of the New York Times.
I know this sounds weird, but when someone asks me "Guess what happened to someone?" One of my favorite replies are, "They died?"
Why? Because in most cases its automatically news. Frazier will be missed and God rest his soul, but thanks for the story, because with his death we can write the end of another great chapter.
--La Guerre
I think you're absolutely right about journalists craving death and drama to sell newspapers. When I worked for the Daily News this summer, I spent a majority of my time writing hundreds of obituaries. How depressing is it that death interests people so much? I found myself looking forward to death notices every day, hoping that there would be many deaths so that I would have a lot to cover in my obits. Now that is just morbid. Ugh.
ReplyDeleteDeath is definitely appealing to journalist and reporters especially when it is a famous person. Smokin' Joe was a great fighter. Him and Ali gave people some of the greatest fights that boxing fans will ever see. His life should be celebrated and I think that journalist are celebrating his life in a way by doing all of this reporting. But it is important to keep in mind as a journalist to not blow this story out of proportion because his family and friends are going to be sensitive about his death.
ReplyDeleteInteresting discussion. Death provides the perfect opening to tell someone's life story because, to put it bluntly, that life is now complete. All you need to do is gauge people's interest in death is this: next time someone even semi-famous dies, look at the trending topics on Twitter. Their name inevitably will be there, because everyone's talking about him/her, their death and, of course, their life.
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