Debating Television Coverage of Latest Kennedy Tragedy

I was immensely pleased with Howard Rosenberg’s piece on the mind-numbing, fawning, tasteless TV coverage of the recent deaths of John F. Kennedy Jr., his wife and her sister (“Coverage a Senseless Tragedy in Itself,” July 23). An island of sanity, thank you.

After watching for a few seconds each time the story intruded, I had to turn away. Transmitting so much minutia trivialized a simple, tragic story. Do television programmers think about what they are doing, or do they just churn it out because they can?

Most people past their youth have experienced death, tragedy and loss. We immediately feel the Kennedy story in a very personal way. If you do not identify and understand, all this endlessly repetitious, foamy coverage does not help.

Why do our local stations seem compelled to provide “live team coverage” that only echoes the network’s junk programming? Don’t local news producers and media executives have ideas of their own or the courage to express them?

DAVID SHERIFF, Anaheim

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Howard Rosenberg just doesn’t get it. An adoring public doesn’t need logic; doesn’t mind media overkill; doesn’t tire of seeing JFK Jr. as a toddler; doesn’t care if TV reporters use incorrect verbiage, saying “momentos” rather than “mementos.”

The viewers just want to see it over and over; they just don’t want to let go. That’s all there is to it. Just call us sentimental, Mr. Rosenberg. We don’t mind.

ELINOR LYNCH, Palm Desert

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Congratulations and thanks to Rosenberg for his courageous and incisive article on the overblown and mawkish press coverage of the Kennedy tragedy.

Newspapers were bad enough, but it was “TV news” at its worst. As the hours wore on, the networks became more frantically hyperbolic, one network commentator reaching so far as to state that “America has lost its crown prince,” apparently forgetting that the American Revolution was fought to break free of monarchy.

It was a sad spectacle of so-called journalists being mesmerized by the sight and sound of their own words. All, that is, except Howard Rosenberg.

ROSS BARRETT, Los Angeles

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Once again we readers have been subjected to the smug arrogance of Howard Rosenberg (“Shades of Saint Diana in Coverage of Kennedy Drama,” July 19). This time he has gone too far.

If the media coverage was too much for him, fine, just shut off the TV. But for myself and, I am certain, for most Americans, it was not too much. It was what we needed to help us get over this terrible event.

So please, Howard, next time be quiet. It wasn’t too much.

HAROLD EINBINDER, Long Beach

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People do stupid things all the time. The problem with being a Kennedy and doing something really stupid is that you will be front-page news. I empathize with them all, having made many mistakes of my own. The blessing/curse of their very public life is continual publicity and scrutiny.

JIM KETCHAM, Malibu

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Who died and made Howard Rosenberg God? He doesn’t like the things being said about a young man who, it appears, grew up to be the graceful man his mother intended, with a genuine compassion for others.

If Rosenberg were not so busy chewing his own sour grapes, he’d realize that there are good people out there who touch the heart of the nation very deeply. John Kennedy was one.

Rosenberg need not fear that there will be many hours wasted on him when he dies. It will take but a second to say, “He is a self-righteous, sanctimonious, self-centered cretin.”

DOREEN MOLES, La Mesa

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Just what is wrong with our country that we become so hysterical over such a really trivial happening? Every day planes go down. Some pilots are better looking and some have better sense than to take wife and sister-in-law on a hazardous expedition. This millionaire could have hired a professional pilot.

JOHN D. ANDREWS, Palos Verdes

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I suppose Rosenberg would prefer that all-day coverage be given to the UN effort to solve the Afghanistan issue. True, that’s more important globally but we were all, except Howard, touched by the Kennedy tragedy.

This was a moment etched in time where universally people came together to share a common tragedy. Also, I found Dan Rather’s “bawling” an extremely human moment--a correspondent torn between objectively reporting the news and a sadness over the death of a man who apparently had some degree of closeness to him. It was television at its most human.

BARRY FINNEGAN, Burbank

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Personally, I find it offensive when JFK Jr. is referred to as a “prince.” I would imagine that Kennedy himself would’ve also rejected such silly gushing. It wasn’t that long ago that John Denver died in a plane crash. With his music, no doubt he touched more lives than Kennedy did. Yet Denver got nothing of the coverage that Kennedy has received.

What continues to be lost in this age of all-news cable TV and media feeding frenzies is a sense of proportion. I think what’s happening is a kind of sickness.

RON FINEMAN, Santa Clarita

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It wasn’t surprising to me to see the networks engage in an orgy of Kennedy coverage. What absolutely shocked me was that they killed all their commercials to do it for hours on end. What kind of sense did it make, journalistically and fiscally?

But most important, how are the news divisions going to pay for that ill-advised decision down the road? With more foreign bureaus closing (if there are any left to close)? With more layoffs? With limited ability to keep correspondents and crews in place in the Balkans to watch and report on the aftermath of the war? Or to keep track of the Mideast peace process? Or to have a unit really dig into the HMOgenization of American health care? Or to adequately cover all the major candidates in the next election?

I thought the hard lesson news divisions learned in the days since Grant Tinker and his more enlightened/benevolent kind left network management to the profits-uber-alles vultures was “there’s no free lunch.” Let’s see what this one costs us all--news providers and consumers--a year down the road.

MICHAEL HIRSH, Valley Glen