Perspective, R.I.P.: A Lost Remote eulogy
By Steve Safran
Managing Editor, Lost Remote
We are gathered here today to say farewell to our longtime friend and companion, Perspective.
He once led, as a pillar of journalism, thousands of those who wished to report on the events that affected people’s lives. He served as a watchdog. He would make sure that no story went reported without telling people why that story should matter to them. Perspective knew he had one of the most cherished roles in news — that of letting people understand just how important a story really was.
Perspective was a good man and a kind man. But he would have been the first to point out he was merely one of approximately 615,000 other words in the English language. That’s the kind of guy he was.
I was fortunate enough to meet Perspective early on, when I was a child. He let me know that a boo-boo was not the same as a broken arm. He told me the girl who broke up with me in 8th grade was, statistically, not the woman I’d marry anyway. And when I was out of college and jobless, Perspective laughed at me when I’d say I was “poor,†and just point to a map of entire continents with people who had less than I.
We all noticed once Perspective started to fall ill. It began in the ‘80s, but really took its toll in the early ‘90s. Perspective took a heavy blow when some guy with a stick whacked some skater of some talent. While Perspective called out “It’s just a wounded knee!†it may just as well have been his own Wounded Knee. When an untalented ex-football star’s ex-wife became an ex-person, Perspective tried to warn us. “She is one murder in Los Angeles, a city where hundreds of non-rich-white-women die every year!†Perspective went into hiding for years, as the television news channels devoted day after day to the trial that ensued.
Perspective returned in 1996 for a glorious Summer Olympics. He was able to give meaning to a competition where athletes from around the world came together in peace. He showed us a world of post-Communist cooperation and what was possible when we brought out the good in each other.
Then a bomb that killed two people sent Perspective for cover, as the media changed its focus immediately onto a security guard who didn’t set it off.
Still, on a Tuesday in September of 2001, Perspective tried to be there for us. He helped us understand a world we had ignored. Perspective never tried to excuse the terror – but he did feel it was his responsibility to help us understand, even as we recoiled.
It was to be Perspective’s last gasp.
Reporters became embedded with one side of a war, meaning there was no chance for Perspective to get into the battle. Politicians denounced you as un-American when you tried to get the other guy’s Perspective, too. Networks went with the hero of the day, rather than the overall picture of carnage. We wanted our Shock and Awe to be awesome but not shocking.
Sadly, Perspective’s health began to deteriorate quickly thereafter. He was absent from many events of recent years and we felt the loss. Without Perspective, the disappearance of a young woman vacationing on a Caribbean island became an international incident. Without Perspective, another young woman’s hopeless struggle with a coma became a national upheaval to which our Congress and President felt the need to devote time. Without Perspective, the murder of a pregnant woman in California by her husband could not be shown as one incident in a national tragedy of domestic abuse. A shark attack turned into a reason for millions to stay out of the water. A runaway bride became a runaway news hit. Lacking Perspective, each of these small events became the Most Important Story of Our Time. For that day.
So it was inevitable this past week when Perspective died. Ironically, it happened as the media tried to put two events into perspective. But, sadly, one-year and five-year anniversaries are too late to resuscitate him. (It always hurt him terribly when people confused him with his cousin, Retrospective.) A week-long national obsession with a strange guy who didn’t kidnap a girl 10 years ago was simply too much for Perspective to take. As quietly as that case was dropped, so too did Perspective.
It is sad to lose our Perspective. Still, we must remember him fondly, He and his twin brother, Context, once played an important role in our lives. They helped us make sense of a complex world, showing us which stories were truly worthy of attention and which were just gossip. While those of us in this gathering will miss Perspective dearly, he had simply become “just one of those 615,000 words in the English language†he would teach us about.
Those are my thoughts, anyway. Although, I may be taking things entirely out of Perspective.