ABSTRACT
All deaths are sudden, even if long expected. In one moment is life; the next, death. Yet the random and violent loss of life during natural disasters seems particularly newsworthy, those sudden deaths especially tragic. When an earthquake in San Francisco or tornadoes in Kansas wreak multiple fatalities, communities small and large share the stories and, to varying degrees, experience the grief. The element of surprise, the bitter and surprisingly egalitarian role of chance in determining death and survival, and the turmoil of recovery are all part of the story. And though natures violence often takes victims by surprise, covering it becomes almost routine for reporters who train and plan for disasters. Indeed, the Dart Center for Journalism and Trauma notes that "the majority of journalists witness traumatic events in their line of work," including natural disasters (Smith & Newman, 2005). It follows that journalists would tell similar stories at disaster sites, often invoking the same kinds of metaphor and cultural-historical context. News coverage of disasters, according to Katherine Fry, who wrote about television reporting of the Midwest floods of 1993 and 1995, "is a socioculturally sanctioned form of telling and, through a unique format, constructs its own reality" (2003, p. 138). This chapter examines some of the shared stories of deadly natural disasters, to seek to understand their function in the social construction of death.
