Rest in mediated peace: how Entertainment Tonight’ s coverage of Natalie Wood’s and John Belushi’s deaths helped shape celebrity death coverage today
2014; Routledge; Volume: 5; Issue: 3 Linguagem: Inglês
10.1080/19392397.2014.911109
ISSN1939-2400
Autores Tópico(s)Gothic Literature and Media Analysis
ResumoToday a celebrity’s death becomes a media event. Television, print, and online news sources can spend weeks covering these deaths, many times reporting the same information in different ways to keep the story alive. But how did celebrity death coverage take on such a life of its own? This article uses historical research to suggest that television entertainment/news magazine Entertainment Tonight’s coverage of Natalie Wood’s and John Belushi’s deaths in 1981 and 1982 respectively helped create a televised style of celebrity death coverage that informs how today’s media covers celebrity death. This is examined through personal interviews with those behind Entertainment Tonight’s coverage of Wood and Belushi, as well as analysis of the actual episodes that aired. The resulting information opens a historical window into how Entertainment Tonight and its early coverage of celebrity death became a driving force behind this type of television news coverage.
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