Does the media go over the top with celebrity deaths?

kpbdublin

Do the press lose all sense of proportion nowadays with their coverage of celebrity deaths? Over the past few days there have been pages and pages of coverage of Gerry Ryan, much of it cloying and insincere. He was a major figure in broadcasting and obviously deserved extensive coverage, but after a while the attention became excessive.
As in most celebrity death scenarios, random mourners who did not even know Gerry turned up at various venues and were afforded a remarkable respect by the media. I don't mean any disrespect to Gerry's family when I suggest that mourning a complete stranger is not a sign of sound mental health.
Since Diana died this phenomenon of celebrity grief syndrome has become more marked.

jacaranda

My partner and I both decided that we had Gerry Ryan Fatigue on the Saturday, the day after his death, as there seemed to be wall to wall coverage with the usual suspects lined up to say how wonderful he was, how funny, how witty, and so on. I'm sure he was a lovely man, but radio presenter dies is hardly the biggest story in the world.

The media is desperate to try to turn any story into something major in an effort to sell more papers and fill more and more airtime.

Hence Radio 4 this last week has cancelled many of its programmes to bring us extended news bulletins as if the third world war had broken out rather than an election won. BBC already have Radio 5 which is dedicated to news, but for some reason they had to disrupt lots of other programmes on radio 4 to bring us the same news that was on radio 5.

old_aussie

Celebrity deaths sell papers and other media which charge big fees for ads. It's all about the money.

jacaranda

old_aussie wrote: »

Celebrity deaths sell papers and other media which charge big fees for ads. It's all about the money.

Funnily enough, I don't buy papers which have celebrity anything on the front cover. I dislike that oxymoron, celebrity culture, and don't have a tv because it became just a mouthpiece for many superbly untalented "celebrities"

What a grump I must come over as!

Paddy the Greek

Yes I think so. I know G.R. was a very popular man to many people in Ireland, but he was just a radio presenter, not a 'Celebrity'. I hate that term, it seems all you have to do nowadays is be somewhat known in the public eye and your dubbed a celebrity. Ireland does not have many people worthy of being called a celebrity - maybe people like Enya, Bono, Bob Geldof, Colin Farrell who are known internationally. But it seems just because you work for RTE/TG4/TV3 it automatically makes you a celebrity...load of crap.

Anyway...I'm rambling, I think that the mourning of 'celebrities' is a trendy thing to do....Just look at Michael Jackson last summer....people came out of the woodworm to be seen to mourn him, yet were nowhere to be seen when he was being hounded for molestation charges. People do it to get themselves publicity...they think 'oh the world will see how sensitive and emotional I am'...plus it sells papers to cover celebrity garbage because its what most people want to read.

I say RIP Gerry Ryan, but the media did go way over the top in the coverage. How long will it be before theres a TV special aired and repeated over and over? Oh and of course the special dvd release in time for Christmas....Money Money Money

Elmo

Paddy the Greek wrote: »

Yes I think so. I know G.R. was a very popular man to many people in Ireland, but he was just a radio presenter, not a 'Celebrity'. I hate that term, it seems all you have to do nowadays is be somewhat known in the public eye and your dubbed a celebrity. Ireland does not have many people worthy of being called a celebrity - maybe people like Enya, Bono, Bob Geldof, Colin Farrell who are known internationally. But it seems just because you work for RTE/TG4/TV3 it automatically makes you a celebrity...load of crap.

I always think this is interesting, and one of the reason why we don't have celebrity in this country. It seems just because you work for an Irish TV or Radio station that makes you a celebrity, but then if you work for the BBC or ITV that really makes you a celebrity???? I would say Gerry Ryan is possibly more of a celebrity than Jonathan Ross in terms of Ireland and the UK. Okay so we import alot of Radio and TV stars from the UK but that doesn't make them much more of a celebrity than most Irish TV and Radio stars. I know you mentioned Bono, Enya, Bob Geldof and Colin Farrell but are they all that internationally famous? Ok I will give you Bono and perhaps Enya but Bob Geldof and Colin Farrell I don't know. Are Westlife celebrities?

I dislike the term Celebrity.

From wikipedia

A celebrity (sometimes referred to as a celeb in popular culture) is a person who is easily recognized in a society or culture.

This would then make most Irish politicans, Irish TV stars, Irish Radio stars etc Celebrities in Ireland and there is nothing wrong with celebrity in Irish Culture the thing is to understand that Weather Men and Xpose Girls possibly aren't such people.

Gerry Ryan's death was intrusive by the end of the week, not so much of the coverage given to the initial news or that of his funeral. But stories in some tabloids were just written out of pure voyeurism.


From last weeks Sunday Business Post's Catherine O'Mahony:

The media’s response to the death of Gerry Ryan was in part predictable, in part shameful. First, Ryan’s RTE colleague Miriam O’Callaghan encountered some criticism for a misguidedly premature Twitter confirmation of his death. So did other media people who discussed rumours of his death on Twitter.

What followed was poor behaviour from the same print media that excoriated Twitter users for being intrusive.

Tabloid themes included the details of Ryan’s financial position (the Herald) and the alleged difficulties between Ryan and the ‘‘suits’’ at RTE (the Irish Daily Mail).

All of this was easy to produce – and presumably shifted loads of papers – but, as an exercise in journalism, it covered nobody in glory. The best of the tributes was a well-judged opinion piece from Fintan O’Toole last Tuesday, in which the Irish Times columnist pointed out Ryan’s talents without glossing over his harder edge:





‘‘Ryan’s genius [was that] he could exploit people and befriend them at the same time. He was every bit as ruthless as [Gay] Byrne, the old master from whom he learned that the show was everything. But he also somehow managed to get across the idea that he actually cared about his listeners. You can’t do that for so many years unless it is true.”

The only mitigating factor for those who took a less thoughtful approach was that Ryan himself displayed a reverence for the tabloid press, on whose stories he kept a close watch in his daily show. He seemed to relish appearing in them himself.

He would probably have derived considerable mileage from the Irish Daily Star’s big PR stunt last week, in which it took ‘‘inspiration’’ from the infamous Hunky Dorys advertisement to release a poster of a model dressed in similar garb.

RTE has, naturally, tried its best to remain dignified as it has lost one of its own.

Rather like a real family, it busied itself for most of last week with preparations for a live 2FM transmission of Ryan’s funeral last Thursday afternoon.

The station must now try to get to grips with the practical issues that have resulted from losing the presenter who was the bedrock of its schedule, and whose position will be near-impossible to fill.

The release of the Joint National Listenership Research report – due last Thursday – was delayed for a week as a mark of respect to Ryan, whose rising or falling audience fortunes were always a significant focus for media coverage of the results.

It will be released this week, giving a poignant reflection of the last full year of broadcasting for Gerry Ryan.

dermothickey

yes, the media does go over the top with celebrity deaths

BostonB

Perhaps people spend too long consuming media?

I didn't see much of it, as don't watch/listen to it.

That said poor Gerry was a huge part of Irish broadcasting.

dermothickey

true boston b, i only agreed simply because i switched on the car radio last week and heard the presenter discussing this very topic, other than that i havent watched t.v in over 10 years or ever bought a newspaper.

jacaranda

dermothickey wrote: »

true boston b, i only agreed simply because i switched on the car radio last week and heard the presenter discussing this very topic, other than that i havent watched t.v in over 10 years or ever bought a newspaper.

Gosh, its great to hear someone else doesn't watch tv or buy newspapers. I gave up tv as the tv news became like a rolling sun newspaper. At least if I were to buy the sun newspaper, I could turn the pages to avoid the stories I might not want to read, but with tv you have to sit there and listen and watch what some teenage news editor thinks I want to watch, or thinks will be best for his programmes ratings. I have no interest in the doings of non celebrities ( for example jade Goody and the thousands of similar "celebrities" who the media desperately tries to make me interested in to sell me their products), and I have to say the best decision I ever made was to give away my tv.

Likewise I rarely buy newspapers but do read some online as its easy to read articles which I enjoy, and avoid the rest.

The media go over the top with celebrity. And that includes their lives and their death. And if manyh want to follow the doings of jade goody and her ilk, then they are free to do that. For me, i a free to not even know what she looks like, and only know her from another thread in here where someone was incredulous that I didn't know her or anything about her.

I looked her up in that dreadful site, Wiki, and it says her main achievement was that she didn't win a tv show called Big Brother. That seems to sum up just how low the media are now scraping the barrell of celebrity.

dermothickey

Exactly, I would read online certain news sites, but in reality I've never looked upon people as being super eg celebrities. Damn I don't even know whats in the charts and haven't ever really. No interest in pop culture, whether they are musicians or big brother participants.

PeterIanStaker

Yes, they do indeed go OTT. Vultures circling the body. Because it s(m)ells copy and allows some people to vicariously express emotions such as grief towards someone they never knew.

Fentdog84

Yes, I mean wheres the privacy these days.. If your mother or brother died no matter who he was the last thing you'd want is it splashed all over the front pages of a newspapers its not very respectful.. As sad as it was and much as he meant to alot of people..people just need to start minding their own business..which I'm not doing now by replying to this thread

sceptre

It's not as though it's only deaths - most of the print media and the TV go overboard with anything related to celebrity. Births (of their children obviously), deaths, marriages, breakups, kids involved in anything untoward, yadda yadda. Mind you, people seem to like reading it and the celebrities in question often court the media to add to or create their own celebrity so everyone wins except those who couldn't give a monkeys.

Celebrity is a bit of a stretched term in Ireland anyway at times. In a small pond, the fish who turns up wearing a pointy hat is a bit of a celebrity as long as people notice the pointy hat and don't put him into a special home as a result. If he's enough of a fashionista that the other fish start copying him, he has to add a bell to stay ahead of the game... if he's hungry enough for the celeb status. It's easy to notice on the front covers of the Irish vaguely-lifestyle magazines, where the definition of celebrity is stretched down to mere recognition. You're close enough to a celebrity in Ireland if you're known by two people you've never met yourself and who don't know each other. If you're young enough, dress better than the common or garden student and you're not worried about where the cab fare is coming from, fix it so that you fall out of bars along the Dublin quays at closing time every night and you're a "well known socialite". It helps, of course, if you're also related to someone with Irish celebrity status (aka cover of VIP magazine if that's still going) but that brings us full circle.

Elmo

sceptre wrote: »

Celebrity is a bit of a stretched term in Ireland anyway at times. In a small pond, the fish who turns up wearing a pointy hat is a bit of a celebrity as long as people notice the pointy hat and don't put him into a special home as a result. If he's enough of a fashionista that the other fish start copying him, he has to add a bell to stay ahead of the game... if he's hungry enough for the celeb status. It's easy to notice on the front covers of the Irish vaguely-lifestyle magazines, where the definition of celebrity is stretched down to mere recognition. You're close enough to a celebrity in Ireland if you're known by two people you've never met yourself and who don't know each other. If you're young enough, dress better than the common or garden student and you're not worried about where the cab fare is coming from, fix it so that you fall out of bars along the Dublin quays at closing time every night and you're a "well known socialite". It helps, of course, if you're also related to someone with Irish celebrity status (aka cover of VIP magazine if that's still going) but that brings us full circle.

Regardless of the size of a country recognition often only seems to be a reason for celebrity. The only difference between Irish Celebrity and other countries celebrity is that we talk them down far more and talk up foreign celebrities more as though they are more special