BLUES JUNCTION Productions
7343 El Camino Real
Suite 327
Atascadero, CA 93422-4697
info
On March 30, 1981, former Press Secretary to Ronald Reagan, James Brady was severely wounded in an assassination attempt on President Reagan. It was reported by all three major news networks in this country that he had died as a result of the bullet wounds he suffered earlier that day.
Longtime news man Frank Reynolds, who was a friend of Brady’s, like his colleagues had to retract the erroneous news that he had shared with the American people. He famously yelled into the mic and on camera. "Let's get it nailed down...somebody...let's find out! Let's get it straight so we can report this thing accurately!" Frank Reynolds never really recovered from this disasterous mistake. He died two years later at the age of 59.
The bottom line is that you don’t report that someone has died until they are dead. Makes sense...I mean how hard could this be?
Now we are all reporters. We all are journalists. We all have an international forum. We are all editorialists. Anybody with a laptop in Starbucks is a writer. We are all part of that international town crier, gazette and daily bugle; it is called Facebook.
Do we have any type of responsibility to get it straight so that we can get this thing nailed down? If Mary Sue Muffin takes a photo of her chili verde burrito at a sidewalk café in San Diego, California, and it is actually a carne asada burrito, well I can abide by that. I don’t give a rat’s behind what Mary Sue Muffin had for lunch in the first place.
However, when someone posts on Facebook my friend has died and he is still alive. Damn it, I do care! That happened last year when it was “reported” on Facebook that Richard “Lynwood Slim” Duran had died while he was still in the hospital.
That post caused his family and close friends a tremendous amount of grief at a time when they didn’t need any more of that. What a horrible way to spend the last few hours with a loved one, responding to text messages, “No Slim is in pretty bad shape, but he is still alive.”
The same thing happened this week with B.B. King, who, while in hospice, is very much alive.
I appreciate the fact that we don’t have field reporters or trusted colleagues who can call in a story that we can “take to the bank,” but why should we? We aren’t in the cutthroat world of high stakes national broadcast journalism. Getting a story first doesn’t give us ratings points and therefore extra dividends to our stockholders and allow us to keep our jobs. Even that is no excuse, but in that arena it is somewhat understandable. The big question is why are you doing it?
If CBS, NBC and ABC can erroneously report the death of a high ranking White House official, then trust me you can screw it up as well.
I first became aware of the ghoulish, sick and irresponsible phenomenon when my phone started blowing up early one Sunday morning in the fall of 2011. The Los Angeles Blues Society (with which I AM NOT affiliated) reported on their FB page that Etta James had died. The great singer and my fellow native Los Angelino had been suffering from some serious health issues that would eventually take her life some months later, but she was in fact alive. Her son Donto, who happened to be at his mother’s bedside that morning, was forced to place phone calls to media outlets all day long.
I contacted the president of this organization and let her know that Etta James was still alive. I was just trying to save her from the kind of embarrassment that a mistake like this could cause her. She told me a blues dj had posted it on Facebook; he had read the story on a gossip website which had been hacked. By the time I spoke to her she realized she had made a mistake. We are all human beings who make mistakes. She however left the erroneous information on her wall for another few hours. I never read an apology or retraction from this individual.
Back in February of 2013, Morris Holt aka Magic Slim was in critical condition. Twelve hours or so before his death people started posting RIPs and pictures of themselves posing with the blues musician. The mere fact that he wasn’t dead didn’t seem to faze anybody. I don’t know how many people removed their posts. I never saw an apology or retraction from anybody.
Why do people feel the need to get the story first? Why don’t people at the very least check it out to see if it is right? Then why wouldn’t it cross people’s minds that even if they knew for a fact that the person has passed that maybe that person’s loved ones and immediate family might want to be the ones to release this information. They might want those closest to the deceased to find out from someone other than a total stranger on Facebook who is just grandstanding on someone’s coffin.
I don’t for a second believe that the FB grim reapers are actually trying to inform others and that they are providing some kind of news service. It is simply a ghoulish display of gross irresponsibility and callousness.
I have posted obits (usually from the L.A. Times) which are really just a celebration of that person’s life...after they had died. Hell, I even write obits myself. I prefer to call them “appreciations” because, 1) simply because they don’t fit the strict confines of the obit style and, 2) that is exactly what they are.
I had to write one for my friend Slim. It happened to be the toughest thing that I have had to deal with in recent memory. It was made more difficult by the fact that the thoughtless amongst us made people close to me experience additional anguish. Slim was an internationally beloved figure. Anybody who had even the slightest amount of personal contact with him was made to feel special. That is because he was one of the most genuinely personable human beings I have ever met. He deserved better. Hell, anyone deserves better. I don’t care who they are. The last hours of a person’s life and the lives’ of their close personal friends and loved ones shouldn’t be spent deflecting and responding to the stupidity and insensitivity of the “modern journalist.”
Enough is enough. Stop it. I mean it. Knock this shit off. Grow the fuck up. Trying to elevate your own cyber social profile by being the first kid on the block to report the death of another human being who may not even be dead is about as sick as it gets.
The Friday before he passed, a friend of mine sent me a text informing me that a person had posted on FB that Slim had passed away. I was at a blues festival surrounded by people who knew Slim and admired his music. You know what I did. Nothing! Let me in on a little secret. It wasn’t that hard. I didn’t tell a soul. Maybe some of you could try this out. If a famous blues musician is sick and dying go ahead and put your RIP and “selfie” on hold. Your restraint just might make you feel like an adult. Your thoughtfulness just might spare someone additional grief.
- David Mac
Editors Note: I want to make clear I am not the Facebook police. This social network means different things to different people. I get that. I also fully appreciate that most of our thoughtful, intelligent readers have the kind of good judgment that would preclude them from engaging in this type of irresponsible behavior. So sadly this missive like so many other features that are “published” here, I am simply preaching to the choir. With that in mind you are more than welcome to share this on Facebook or anywhere else your heart desires. It just might save some folks an awful lot of heart ache and pain at a time when their grief is already acute.
Copyright 2022 BLUES JUNCTION Productions. All rights reserved.
BLUES JUNCTION Productions
7343 El Camino Real
Suite 327
Atascadero, CA 93422-4697
info