In an essay in the hagiographic March 24 issue of Rolling Stone devoted to
Hunter S. Thompson, director Bob Rafelson wrote of seeing Thompson's body before
it was removed from the author's Woody Creek home following his February 20
suicide. Afterward, Rafelson's wife asked how Thompson looked. "Surprised," he
replied.
Thompson would have been considerably less shocked by the rapturous remembrances
that have flooded out since he breathed his last. A man with an ego that
deserved its own zip code, he loved to burnish his image, and the moment he was
no longer capable of doing so personally, his carefully cultivated gaggle of
renowned pals and acquaintances picked up the mantle. The group that provided
salutes to Rolling Stone included Johnny Depp, Jack Nicholson, Jimmy Carter, Pat
Buchanan and Marilyn Manson, and several of its members extended their praise to
the way he ended his life. "How great, in a sense, that he did it his way," said
actress Anjelica Huston.
The possible repercussions of such sentiments worry Brenda Gierczak, coordinator
for the Suicide Prevention Coalition of Colorado. She's closely followed how
news organizations have handled the Thompson story and says that it's
"disconcerting how his suicide has been glorified." In an attempt to stem the
tide, Gierczak and Carol Breslau, who helps oversee a suicide-prevention
initiative for the Colorado Trust, contacted major news purveyors in the region
to express their concerns and to ask that journalists bear in mind advice
offered in "Reporting on Suicide: Recommendations for the Media," issued by the
University of Pennsylvania's Annenberg Public Policy Center in 2001. The
document is filled with common-sense guidelines that precious few Thompson
chroniclers have followed.
At one point, the report states that "celebrity deaths by suicide are more
likely than non-celebrity deaths to produce imitation" -- a theory supported by
this case, since Thompson idolized and emulated Ernest Hemingway, who also ended
his life with a gun. Later, it cautions that "although suicides by celebrities
will receive prominent coverage, it is important not to let the glamour of the
individual obscure any mental health problems or use of drugs." Reporter John
Aguilar struck this balance in a February 21 Rocky Mountain News roundup that
leavened compliments with comments from "a source close to the family," who
called Thompson "a raging addict and an abusive man." But a February 22 Denver
Post piece about Aspenites' reaction to Thompson's demise was far more typical.
Under the heading "Guns, Gonzo and Whiskey," scribes Nancy Lofholm and Troy
Hooper made passing reference to suggestions that Thompson had been "mentally
struggling" with health-related matters in recent years,
devoting far more space to wacky tales of firearms-fueled silliness recounted
by bar patrons swilling "Molson and Chivas." And, obviously, no in-depth
discussion of suicide found its way into a March 19 Rocky account of a plan to
build "an upside-down, sculpted mushroom perched on a 150-foot-high,
double-thumbed fist" capable of firing Thompson's ashes into the Woody Creek
breeze. The article, which read almost like a reprint from The Onion, was nearly
as funny as arguments that Thompson was a towering prose giant rather than an
entertaining character who played the same literary note for over three decades.
In more solemn narratives, Thompson's friends and relatives frequently
justified his final action -- a natural inclination among those touched by
suicide, since they're left to make sense of what's often inexplicable. For
instance, Juan Thompson, Hunter's son, told the Rocky his father was "a warrior,
and he went out like a warrior," and Juan's wife, Jennifer Winkel Thompson,
added, "He had a lot of courage, and he wasn't afraid to direct his life." Even
Gierczak doesn't blame the media for including these opinions, since they're
undeniably newsworthy.
Reports on the March 15 suicide of Brandenn Bremmer, a fourteen-year-old prodigy
who was a favorite of the Denver media, contained similar rationalizations. The
Rocky quoted one of Bremmer's sisters saying, "We do not believe Brandenn was
suffering from mental illness or that he was depressed?. His mind was too
powerful for the limitations of the physical world." In the Post, meanwhile, the
boy's mother declared that "what he did was not an act of selfishness,
depression or anger." But while the Rocky tacked only a quickie suicide stat to
the bottom of its article, Post reporter Kevin Simpson also offered some
perspective on teen suicide from Shannon Breitzman, with the Colorado Department
of Public Health and Environment. Channel 9's Paul Johnson took much the same
tack, including interview footage of Jacy Conradt, community-relations
coordinator for the Mental Health Association of Colorado, in a package prompted
by Bremmer's death. Conradt describes Johnson's approach as "very
respectful. It showed an awareness and responsibility in the reporting."
Gierczak hopes other news-gatherers will take a page from Channel 9's book.
"This is a serious issue in the mountain states," she says. "We have the
seventh-highest suicide rate in the nation here, and that's huge -- absolutely
huge. It's something we need to work really hard to bring down." But she fears
such efforts may be undermined by reports like those in which Thompson's suicide
was portrayed as a bold act of self-control. After all, she says, when famous
people die by their own hand, "it's brought out in the largest way, because it's
interesting to everybody."
No surprise there.
Back to school: Another person who died by suicide -- Jeff Weise -- would have
remained unknown to the country at large if he hadn't slain nine people,
including seven at Minnesota's Red Lake High School, before shooting himself on
March 21. Yet even though Weise's rampage was the deadliest school shooting
since the 1999 massacre at Columbine High School, the horrific incident hardly
dominated national newscasts. The next morning, in an appearance on Fox News,
Darrell Scott, whose daughter, Rachel, was killed at Columbine, observed with
alarm that the killings were the "third or fourth story" at most outlets, and
things didn't change much as the week wore on. The network morning news programs
were dominated by Columbine for weeks, but on March 24, near the start of the
shows' second hour, Red Lake was ignored in favor of a gardening segment on
CBS's Early Show, an interview with the wives of sports stars on Good Morning
America, and a Today expose about "teens and tanning."
There's no single reason that Weise's crimes played third fiddle on many
newscasts to debates about Terri Schiavo and Michael Jackson's bad back and
taste in pajamas. Red Lake is a remote location, and because it's on a closed
Indian reservation whose leaders are doing their best to restrict unfettered
access to journalists, getting the story isn't as easy as it was in Littleton.
The fact that the Red Lake body count was lower than Columbine's comes into play
as well, absurdly enough. It's also possible that many news executives deploying
resources feel their audiences will be less interested in the misery of
impoverished Native Americans than they were in middle-class Caucasians of the
sort who dominated the Columbine casualty list.
The Denver dailies have bucked this trend. The Post dispatched the
aforementioned Kevin Simpson to Minnesota, while the Rocky sent three staffers,
including columnist Mike Littwin. Granted, the Rocky, which was often guilty of
Columbine overdose back in the day, has overplayed its hand at times; "Boy
Admired Hitler," the New York Post-style headline that shrieked from the top of
its March 23 front page, springs to mind. Still, earnestly focusing on the Red
Lake tragedy is far preferable to treating it like an also-ran.
From westword.com
Originally published by Westword Mar 31, 2005