What they were, what they did and then what they won. In that order.
All too often nowadays, in its unseemly haste to have something to say before it's worked out what's worth saying, 24 hour rolling news leads its deaths stories with "Oscar winner" or "Grammy winner" as if that was the thing that made the person notable rather than the (usually belated) recognition of their being of note.
To be fair, it's the sort of boring headline the NYT has used for aeons.
ReplyDeleteBut I agree, it's the same logic that has someone who has changed society or touched a million hearts described as a "Triple Grammy award winner".
I don't think that R4's Today programme were guilty of dancing on this this story. At a time when very few facts were available it chose not to fill the minutes with speculation about Robin Williams but instead looked at the natural death of Lauren Bacall with a little retrospective of her life.
ReplyDeleteAs for TV's 'rolling news' thankfully I no longer have access to it.