Important names we never hear

Timothy David, Roger Adams, Robert Bittiker, Edward Kramer, Brian Bradshaw, Ricky Jones: Any of these names ring a bell? I didn’t think so. These young men—all American soldiers—were killed in Iraq within days of the King of Pop’s death.

But, who knew? From the minute news of Michael Jackson’s death hit, the coverage was nonstop. There were, after all, important questions to answer: Where was his body going? Was he dead before or after he arrived at the hospital? What will happen to his children? What about Neverland? Is that La Toya entering the hospital? I watched (yes, I admit it) as one news anchor after another described the scene outside the hospital and Neverland Ranch. Later that night, CNN flashed a photo—probably the last photo of Jackson ever taken—in which he is seen lying on a stretcher, most likely already gone. “How did you get that photo? Great reporting,” Larry King said to the reporter.

Much of this did not sit well with me, and it wasn’t just that tasteless photo and repetitive video footage. The coverage of Jackson’s memorial service was what put me over the edge. How is it, I wondered, that it garnered so much coverage with so much else going on in the world? I know this sounds naïve and cynical, but if I had to listen to what Brooke Shields had to say one more time, I think I might have thrown up. How far gone are we? What about the soldiers who died in Iraq that week? What about their stories, their funerals, their lives? Are people that far removed from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan? There are veterans of both wars right here at Columbia and all across New York City—it might help them to know that the rest of the country is acknowledging the sacrifice their fellow servicemen and women are making. The media holds some responsibility to that end.

I was not alone in feeling this way. My husband saw something recently about a family member of a fallen soldier who had spoken out about the excessive Jackson coverage. He couldn’t remember what network it was on, only that he’d seen it briefly on one of the many TV screens constantly transmitting news to his office. I began to Google “Soldier Family Iraq Death Jackson” and found Martha Gillis. Gillis is the aunt of U.S. Army First Lieutenant Brian Bradshaw. Bradshaw, 24, was killed in Afghanistan on June 25, the same day Jackson died. Gillis wrote a letter to the editor of the Washington Post saying, “It makes me want to scream” in reference to the continuous Jackson coverage and lack of stories about soldiers like her nephew.

Fox News featured Gillis’s story, so I watched that footage on YouTube. While the well-coifed anchorwoman spoke about Gillis and her nephew, a box in the lower right corner of the TV screen streamed live coverage of Jackson’s memorial. God forbid anyone misses a few celebrity guests, or a peek at his unveiled children. Here they were, covering a story about the nonstop coverage of Jackson’s death from the perspective of a family member of a fallen U.S. soldier, all the while streaming coverage of the Jackson memorial service. Could they not see the irony here? I guess they didn’t want anyone to change the channel.

I am not saying that the media coverage of Jackson’s death overshadowed the coverage of the soldiers who died that week, because quite frankly they would not have been in the news anyway. Had Jackson died another day, poor Farrah Fawcett would have taken over center stage. It is not that I don’t understand what an icon Michael Jackson is and the contribution he has made to the music world. His death is incredibly sad for everyone who loved him. I, too, was a fan, and the day he passed stirred up memories of being seven years old and dancing in front of my record player to “Beat It” and “Billie Jean.” His music was a central part of my childhood, and I still love it.

What angers and saddens me the most is that as of Sept. 4, 4,340 American servicemen and women have been killed in Iraq since the war began in 2003, and 15 were killed in June alone. The war in Afghanistan has claimed 816 American soldiers’ lives since 2001. I challenge any of us to name one of them. These men and women will never dance again, listen to music, marry their fiancés, have dinner with their spouses, hold their children, travel the world, or have a cold beer on a summer day. They may not have left behind a legion of fans or hit records, but their lives are worth so much more than we have acknowledged, and their stories are more than local news.

The author is a student at the Graduate School of Journalism. ”Important names we never hear” is an installment in Summer Dispatches, an opinion feature series that seeks to showcase the diverse summer experiences of members of the Columbia community.

Tags: Opinion, Lauren Lodato, Grace Duffy, Iraq, Michael Jackson