What’s a Tragedy?
Years ago, a debate sprung from the editorial offices of the Washington City Paper. Here’s the backdrop: We were writing about a 40-something musician or artist who died when his car got T-boned in a terrible accident. A draft of the story called this event a “tragedy.” A since-departed editor said no, that’s not a tragedy. Do you know what a tragedy actually is?, he inveighed. He said that his English professor preached that a tragedy is when a great, great man dies an early death.
In addition to being a song by the Bee Gees, “Tragedy” is defined as a “calamity: an event resulting in great loss and misfortune….”
So perhaps news outlets should exercise a bit of caution in using the word. Particularly sports writers, who are always trying to amp up the drama in their copy, even stories that don’t involve the Olympics.
This past weekend, I was reading Mark Maske’s piece in the Washington Post about Green Bay Packers executive Mark Murphy. A former Redskin, Murphy was the guy who negotiated the team’s traumatic separation from Brett Favre. Here’s Maske’s bar for tragedy:
For Murphy, the Favre saga played out at a time of personal tragedy. His father Hugh died in mid-July in Clearwater, Fla., at 83, only about 3 1/2 months after having brain cancer diagnosed. Hugh Murphy had a long career in labor relations and had continued to work as a mediator in Florida until about a year before his death.
Is that really a tragedy, or is that just life?
3 Responses to “What’s a Tragedy?”
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September 9th, 2008 at 1:05 pm
I think its a tragedy to the person/people who personally experiences it. Otherwise, the word tragedy should be used justfor the earthquakes in China and 9/11 type events.
IMO
September 9th, 2008 at 1:41 pm
For what it’s worth, I worked on a couple of committees with Mark Murphy when he was the Athletics Director at my school. As a Bills fan I had no idea who the hell he was. From my perspective, he just a genuinely awesome guy who put in a respectable effort into a pretty boring campus planning committee. He’s good people and I’m happy to seem him succeed.
Nonetheless, I don’t think you can even say it’s a personal tragedy when an elderly person dies in their 80s. It’s sad, but lacking some extenuating circumstances (he was months away from curing the common cold, he was just about to donate his bone marrow to a sick child, etc.) it’s not a personal tragedy.
They should have just said “played out in a time of personal sorrow”
September 9th, 2008 at 2:10 pm
That’s pretty much what I was thinking, too, Aron. When I first read “tragedy,” I was bracing myself for something awful. Then I read that his father had lived a long life and marked the sentence for discussion. Thanks for participating.