Updated Friday, June 26, at 17:42 Nairobi, Kenya time
Front pages of newspapers from around the world, paying tribute to Michael Jackson and Farrah Fawcett
The Daily News, Palo Alto, California: honoring Farrah and Michael on Page One
The Path of the Story: quicker than quick for breaking news
We have said it all along, and we knew it quite precisely after the landing of a US Airways jet on the Hudson River last January: with today’s technology, and particularly with the use of mobile phones, breaking news begins to travel FAST before the traditional media gets to it. Every person who carries a mobile telephone is, in a sense, a reporter at the scene. It was the same with the news of Michael Jackson’s death.
Here is the report from the Associated Press on how the news travelled:
Where-were-you moment of the digital age: News of Jackson death broke online
NEW YORK (AP)—It was a where-were-you moment in a digital age. Michael Jackson’s death was not learned from a fatherly TV news anchor. Instead, the news first spread online.
Some of the initial reports from various outlets were confusing: Was Jackson still alive? Was he in a coma? They spread like wildfire across news sites, social media networks and Twitter.
The celebrity Web site TMZ.com. site broke the news of Jackson’s death at 5:20 p.m. Thursday.
It was a huge scoop for the AOL-owned TMZ, though many did not believe TMZ’s report until it was matched by more established news organizations.
“Everything starts with a tip,” said Harvey Levin, managing editor of TMZ. “We wouldn’t have put it up if we weren’t positive.”
Jackson’s death was confirmed by the Los Angeles Times and then The Associated Press just minutes before the nightly network news began. The anchors relayed the news at the top of their broadcasts, though CBS and ABC quickly moved on to their prepared obituaries for Farrah Fawcett, who died earlier Thursday.
The Twitter traffic jam
Jackson dominated the discussion on Twitter, generating the most tweets per second since Barack Obama was elected president in November.
“We saw over twice the normal tweets per second the moment the story broke as people shared their grief and memories,” Twitter co-founder Biz Stone said in an e-mail.
The tweeting tripped up Twitter briefly, but engineers quickly responded to keep the service running. At times Thursday night, Jackson-related search topics were the most popular on the site.
Two icons die within five hours of each other
We went to bed lamenting the news of Farrah Fawcett’s death; we wake up this morning to the shocking news of Michael Jackson’s death, following cardiac arrest (autopsy pending). Two icons have left us within 24 hours. Both captured our attention and became visual symbols of their respective generations. Both faced major struggles at the end. Now both share Page Ones globally, as their zillion of fans pay tribute to two very different stars who captured our attention in life and death.
TAKEAWAY: Her poster was a lesson to all of those in visual journalism: how to convey it all through an image. Farrah Fawcett has died, but she will always be the ultimate icon of her generation. ALSO: With the sad news of Michael Jackson’s death, a few hours after Farrah Fawcett’s, the world loses its biggest pop icon ever.
Two visual icons, Farrah Fawcett and Michael Jackson, defined the look(s) of their generations.
Icons’ deaths on Page One
For The Los Angeles Times, a very local story
The Chicago Sun Times, a tabloid, showing the many reinventions of Michael Jackson over the years
Two Florida newspapers: The Miami Herald, The Orlando Sentinel, different approaches
The Orange County Register: rarely seen image of Michael Jackson for visual lead
Red Eye (Illinois) and the power of less for a striking cover
Farrah Fawcett is gone.
Charlie’s Angel is on her journey to becoming an Angel for real, where it counts.
At 62, she was definitely too young to die. She and I were born 13 days apart, in 1947.
My daughter Ana, when she was 4 years old, wanted to have her hair like Farrah, and so did millions of girls around the globe. Many did, indeed. I was riding the subway in New York City in 1977, after Farrah’s first and only season as Jill Monroe in Charlie’s Angel, and I counted three Farrahs on that train. Unfortunately, not one of them was the real Farrah.
The real Farrah went on to gain respect with some dramatic roles, proving she could be a serious actress (The Burning Bed, Nazi Hunter: The Beate Klarsfeld Story, Poor Little Rich Girl: The Barbara Hutton Story, Margaret Bourke-White), but she remained an icon of her generation.
Those of us who work with visuals know that Farrah was the ultimate icon—-quick to convey a feeling, hard to forget.
Just take a look at that poster of la Farrah and her multimillion dollar smile——and, yes, that famous blonde mane that The New York Times today described as her “signature leonine hairstyle”——and you did not need to use one word to describe her or say anything. The visual that works best is the one that does not need any support from words, color or other accessories. Farrah’s poster was that.
The poster said it all: sexiest woman of her generation and beyond (remember that she posed nude for Playboy when she was already in her 50s).
At the end, she decided to tell the world about her battle with cancer, a documentary that aired last May. I started to watch it, but stopped half way. We in our family had lost our dear Maria to cancer and had lived through everything Farrah was telling us about only 18 months ago. It was brave of her to document her illness. I was not brave enough to see it in its entirety, but I know that the world and those lucky enough never to have been visited by cancer, today have a better understanding of the disease and what it does to its victims and their families because of Farrah’s efforts, in the last months of her life, to tell us in painful detail about this disease.
Like Maria, she is in a better place, and without pain, today.
The Farrah that we remember, the icon of her generation, and the courage she showed to the end , will serve as inspirations beyond the famous poster, the fabulous Hollywood smile and the hairdo that was replicated at least ten times on the pages of every high school and college yearbook of the late 70s.
I have no idea how God welcomes those who carried the roles of angels on this earth, but I can already hear God (in a Charlie voiceover) saying:
Jill, I have a special assignment for you, I want you to go around here showing that smile of yours, and I know that our neighborhood will be a happier place because you are here.
Send me your Farrah, Michael tribute pages
I would be interested in displaying pages here that pay tribute to Farrah and Michael Jackson. Send me pdfs by email: mario@garcia-media.com.
Bruno the fashion reporter
The day that Bruno became the Bild Zeitung’s fashion reporter
You must give British comedian Sacha Baron Cohencredit for promoting his latest, most outrageous film, Bruno. His antics at various fashion shows and other entertainment events guarantee him media coverage almost daily. And Germany’s colorful daily, Bild Zeitung,(a master of promotion itself), seized the opportunity to “hire” Bruno the fashion journalist as fashion reporter for a day for its newspaper, with the expected results. Obviously a fun gig for Cohen, who is promoting his new film, now opening in various European cities.
Here’s today’s Bild Zeitung page with coverage of Bruno the Bild Zeitung fashion reporter! Part of Bild Zeitung’s appeal and success is its ability to laugh at itself, while providing entertainment for its readers.
Celebrity relevancy, perhaps, but it works here because whatever you may think about the Bild Zeitung, I maintain my theory on why it is so successful: it knows its audience, it has no pretensions and it focuses entirely on the content, visuals and entertainment that the audience craves.
It works. Ironically, it is here that the ultra outrageous Bruno found a vehicle that sometimes can outdo him in the outrageous department.
Suddenly, it was 1961 again
TAKEAWAY: The world wide web is famous for providing a huge basket of surprises at every click and scroll. So, what a wonderful surprise it was for me to find a website that offers a vast collection of Cuban films, including one in which I participated as a child actor. Forty-eight years later I get to see it.
Mario the actor in scenes of The Young Rebel (1961) with fellow actor Blas Mora
The email looked just like any other. It was from Roxana Urrutia, whom I had met in Spain two years ago as she organized a media conference in Marbella. This time, Roxana, who knows I was born in Cuba, wanted me to know about this website where all Cuban films going back to the 1950s could be seen—-for free. I immediately scrolled down to one title El Joven Rebelde (1961) (The Young Rebel). I clicked, and, presto, the credits started rolling, the black and white flick in front of my eyes, and about three minutes later, there I was, playing the role of Juan—-friend of the protagonist, the young rebel, played by a Blas Mora.
And, while I was ready to go to sleep in Nairobi, Kenya, where I work this week, the lure of seeing my scenes was stronger than the usual tiredness one feels at 11 pm after an intense day.
My scenes come early in the movie, as I attempt to assist my friend in his efforts to join the rebels fighting in the mountains. My task is to steal a gun from my uncle’s home, pass it to my friend, and allow him to go into the hills to join the Castro rebel movement.
Night scenes
Seeing the movie reminded me how scare I was filming those scenes in the middle of the night, afraid of snakes, bitten by mosquitoes and sometimes quite far from where the camera crew was, waiting and waiting for them to shoot a scene.
I also remembered how much I loved the acting. I was 13 when The Young Rebel was filmed, but by then I had been a child actor since the age of 8—-doing everything from television soap operas, to commercials, to several theatrical performances (my favorite).
Yes, geopolitics sometimes has a way of getting in the way of one’s plans and ambitions. In 1961, I had no doubt in my mind that acting would be my career of choice.
My parents had a different idea, however.
As soon as filming of The Young Rebel was completed, they put me on a Pan Am flight to Miami, to save me from what was obviously a communist regime coming into power. As the movie made a splashy premiered in Havana and Moscow, I carried trays of dirty dishes on my shoulders at a downtown Miami restaurant.
Within 24 hours I went from being a child actor, pampered and living in a sort of special world, to landing as a refugee in a country where I did not know the language, and where I was soon working part time after school at Suzanne’s restaurant. My name never appeared at the end of the movie, when the credits rolled. I was already “in exile” when the film was edited. Anyone who left became the enemy—persona non grata to the regime My scenes remained. My name disappeared from the credits just as quickly as my new life began in the United States.
In those days, one had 28 days to return to Cuba, or stay in the US permanently with “refugee” status.
On the 29th day I cried, and I knew that I was not returning to my parents (who joined me two years later), or to Havana and the marvelous world of a child actor that I knew so well.
I was young, but not a rebel myself. I adapted. I learned English. I said goodbye to acting, applied myself to my studies and then fell in love with journalism. The young rebel meets the American dream head on.
Last night in Nairobi, I watched me doing those scenes. Suddenly, it was 1961. My acting dreams were big at that time. So were the dreams of my fellow Cubans who thought that Castro and his rebels would bring us a better Cuba.
It was not meant to be. We know the rest of the story.
For those of you who wish to catch me as Mario the actor, go here: http://cinecuba.blogspot.com/2008/03/el-joven-rebelde-1961.html
Yes, Bob Hope: Thanks for the memories. And, thanks, Roxana, for leading me to this little movie. It will be fun to show it to my grandchildren.
Tip: One of the best Cuban films of all time, the Oscar-nominated Fresa y Chocolate, 1993 (Strawberry and Chocolate), is available to see here. I recommend it highly.
Pure Design comes to the blog
While my 2002 book Pure Design is virtually out of print, we will be bringing you the short “fable-inspired” entries, offering solutions for magazines, books, newspapers and websites.It is all about the basics of visual journalism. Starting here July 1.
As readers of Pure Design know, I was inspired by Aesop’s fables to write short, all inclusive entries on a variety of design-related topics, from color and typography to white space use and page architecture.
My plan is to add new thoughts to each of the “fable entries”, to update the topics whenever possible. Our summer intern, Reed Reibstein, will be assisting me as we prepare the materials for presentation in this new medium.
As I read through the material one more time, I realize that 85% of what is in Pure Design still matters today. I will make an attempt to update that other 15% in which we can add new dimensions almost 7 years later.
Pure Design’s pages will be available as PDFs through the Issuu viewer (http://issuu.com/) embedded in the blog.
TheMarioBlog posting #289