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Lies and consequences

Considering how consumed the media are with both death and dying, you might think a brief news item about someone's impending demise wouldn't cause much of a stir. But, of course, it all depends who the someone is.

 

Late last month, a British newspaper reported that ex-Beatle George Harrison, 58, who has recently been treated for lung and brain tumors, "knows he is going to die soon and (is) accepting it perfectly happily." The newspaper cited former Beatles producer Mr. George Martin as the source of this rather ghoulish piece of information.

 

Did the world care? Yes, it did. The story was instantly picked up by global news wires and radio and television stations and disseminated even farther and faster on the Internet, triggering an outpouring of shock and sympathy. The Web was jammed overnight with tributes to "the quiet Beatle."

 

Unfortunately, it was too much, too soon. The very next day, Mr. Harrison issued a statement denying he had ever said any such thing; moreover, he said, he was "active and feeling very well," at work on his next album and "disappointed and disgusted" by the rumor-mongering. Mr. Martin denied all knowledge of the quotes attributed to him. Before the week was out, the fuss had died down, although the distress that the incident undoubtedly caused to Mr. Harrison will remain irreparable.

 

There are two interesting things about this story. The first is the sheer quantity of comment it generated, especially since the substance of it was not news to begin with. Mr. Harrison has never attempted to suppress reports of his bouts with throat, lung and brain cancer. Nor was it merely a matter of his celebrity. He is, after all, an extremely retiring and by now somewhat obscure celebrity. No, the newsworthiness of this report lay in the spin it was given, the attitude it suggested that Mr. Harrison took toward the idea of death.

 

Not since Mother Teresa had a public figure spoken so equably of his fate -- or so it seemed. "George is very philosophical," Mr. Martin had been quoted as saying. "He does realize that everybody has got to die sometime." Judging by the eulogies that flooded the Web, people were not used to this. There are many ways to go, but the ones that are usually presented to us as heroic are less stoic: fighting bravely, holding on, exhausting all avenues, battling the big C, raging against the dying of the light, and so on.

 

Those who responded to the Harrison story appeared to be both intrigued and inspired by the image of a man taking a different path. It also had the ring of authenticity: Mr. Harrison had long been seen as a serene, meditative person, content to "let it be." In this sense, the public's curiosity might have been much less ghoulish than it seemed at first, and may even survive the revelation of fakery.

 

As if to confirm that there really was a story lurking here, the week concluded with reports of what Katharine Graham, the much-admired and recently deceased owner of The Washington Post, had written in her will: "Death is as much a reality as birth, growth, maturity and old age. It is the one certainty. I cannot fear death." This, too, excited comment. Between them, the two stories -- one real, one fabricated -- provided a genuine occasion for reflection on some of life's deeper questions: How should we conduct ourselves? Whom do we admire, and why? What is it that we really fear?

 

This is not to suggest, however, that the manufacturing of quotes by and about Mr. Harrison was in any way defensible, or that his outrage was misplaced. The British newspaper that published the initial story violated both his rights and the public's trust. Still, such violations have plagued the media since the days of sandwich boards.

 

What the entire episode highlighted -- and this is the second interesting thing about it -- is the heightened responsibility that reporters and publishers bear in this high-speed age of ours. A mistake or a lie can be printed, disseminated and accepted as "truth" so rapidly and so widely that it is difficult for a correction or retraction to undo the damage, no matter how soon it is issued.

 

At the very least, rumors linger in the collective mind, sometimes taking on the quality of legend. In the Internet era, when a person can be vilified or misrepresented at what seems like the speed of light, the media arguably should do more than they have ever done to ensure the accuracy of what they print. And readers, by the same token, should cultivate a healthy skepticism about everything they read.

 

It is easy to see, in retrospect, why the Harrison story made headlines: It spoke to some of our profoundest anxieties. But, like much else in this age of instant headlines and easy formulations, it should never have been published.

The Japan Times: Aug. 5, 2001
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