I Read the News Today, Oh Boy

Lennon is mourned in print and on the air, tastefully and not

"The death of a man who sang and played the guitar overshadows the news from Poland, Iran and Washington tonight." Thus did Walter Cronkite begin his CBS Evening News broadcast Dec. 9 with the story of how Musician and former Beatle John Lennon had been shot to death in New York City. At ABC and NBC, Anchormen Ted Koppel and John Chancellor started their newscasts the same way, placing Lennon ahead of the latest developments in negotiations for the release of the American hostages and the threat of a Soviet invasion of Poland.

For days, in newspapers, magazines and special television broadcasts, the death of a popular entertainer took precedence over wars, diplomatic demarches and economic crises. Newsstands were blanketed with cover stories: in TIME, Newsweek, PEOPLE, New York, Us, the Village Voice, Soho News, Boston Phoenix, Cash Box, Record World, Rolling Stone, Paris Match and innumerable others. But the magazines were not there for long--readers scooped them up in record numbers. New York magazine's tribute to Lennon was, at 60,000 newsstand copies, its all time bestselling issue. Both Newsweek and TIME printed 100,000 more copies than usual for newsstand distribution. TIME sold more than 500,000, making it the third biggest selling issue in decades. Only the Nixon resignation (1974) and the Jonestown cult suicides (1978) have topped it in 30 years. PEOPLE magazine was just going to press when Lennon's death was announced. A cover story on Tanya Roberts, Charlie's newest Angel, was scrapped and replaced with an eleven-page tribute to Lennon. The issue sold more than 2.6 million copies, breaking the magazine's record for newsstand sales of a regular issue.

Many newspapers redeployed reporters and editors overnight to publish special sections. The London Sunday Times Magazine marshaled 21 staff members--including one who caught the Concorde to New York to pick up photographs--to produce a 64-page special edition on the musician. It was only the second such issue in the magazine's 18-year history; the first marked Queen Elizabeth's Silver Jubilee in 1977. The Chicago Sun Times sold out 740,000 copies of a Lennon supplement. In San Francisco the first five pages of the Dec. 9 Examiner were devoted to Lennon. The paper sold 185,000 copies that day, 30,000 more than usual.

ABC, NBC and CBS broadcast television specials on Lennon's life. BBC-Radio One, like dozens of radio stations in the U.S., played Beatle records almost exclusively for days after the murder. Boston's classical music station WBGH-FM aired a symphonic medley of Lennon's music. ABC-TV closed its news broadcast on Christmas Eve with Lennon's recording Happy Xmas (War Is Over), showing a montage of Lennon's life and Pope John Paul II bestowing a blessing as Lennon sang "And so this is Christmas. I hope you have fun ..."

Lennon's death brought an unexpected windfall to some. Photographer Paul Goresh's picture of Lennon autographing his new album Double Fantasy for Mark David Chapman, the alleged killer, a few hours before his death brought more than $100,000 in worldwide syndication fees. In some cases, commercialism got out of hand and taste was trampled. The New York Post published a ghoulish Page One picture of Lennon taken at the city morgue after his death, dubbing the shot "historic." The National Enquirer printed the photo in color. Us magazine raised its newsstand price to $2.50 from 75-c- for a special Lennon edition, with an "exclusive" of "John and Yoke's last photo session." It was not; the last was Rolling Stone's, conducted hours before the shooting. A startling picture from that session, showing a nude Lennon embracing a fully clothed Yoko, was used as the cover of Rolling Stone's 1.8 million-copy Lennon memorial issue, which is expected to be RS's alltime bestseller. Publishers began turning out Lennon books almost overnight. The Wall Street Journal reported that one venture capitalist, Harry Harootunian of Cranston, R.I., even put out a prospectus offering 23 partnership interests at $45,000 apiece in a forthcoming book about Lennon.

Despite the unprecedented journalistic response, there were limits. On the Sunday after Lennon's death, when many mourners observed ten minutes of silence in his memory, New York's WCBS-TV cut away from the Philadelphia Eagles-St. Louis Cardinals football game to cover the mute tribute, its cameras panning over saddened faces in Central Park. Hundreds of angry callers jammed the station's switchboard to complain. qed

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