Elvis's Army Fatigues Survive the Malibu Wildfires

I offer a small, telling example of the phummphy, self-censorship of The New York Times.

I see this phenomenon when researching old newspapers for books I write.

First, quick background:

On October 22, the Times featured an horrific but beautiful photo of the yellow and red wildfires raging in California and fueled by Santa Ana winds from the high desert. Two hundred fifty thousand people had been, by that point, forced to evacuate.

In Malibu, the fires completely destroyed the ridiculously over-the-top Castle Kashan, a reproduction of a 13th century Scottish castle used in TV shows such as the Rockford Files.

The castle was the home of the rich daughter of a former Iranian oil minister and had been on the market for 17 million dollars.

Here's the point-- I think the middle-brow decorousness of Times editors gets in the way of cultural truths.

I suspect that because the fire is a growing tragedy, the newspaper of record omitted the fact that the Castle Kashan's female owner fled carrying Elvis Presley's army fatigues. (The fact was reported by Jacob Adelman of the Associated Press.)

I think the Times editors omitted the Elvis Presley army fatigues fearing they'd be accused of reporting something risible in the midst of tragedy.

To me, the raging fires are a total horror, but the cultural fact that the woman so values Elvis Presley's stuff fascinates.

Women of a certain age -- indeed people of all ages love Elvis -- still.

This is a likely continuation of the phenomenon of Elvis sightings that were reported a few years back.

In an interview, not so long ago, the then Duchess of Devonshire, a Mitford sister, remarked (and I paraphrase) that Elvis Presley is probably one of her most favorite things about our culture.

Tragedy comes and tragedy goes -- but somehow the King lives.

The late great I.F. Stone said his superb career of independent journalism was based on finding the buried or omitted fact in mainstream newspaper stories..

Comments

[drblack]

I saw an interview with someone who was there and they said that firemen and emergency workers were also grabbing "Treasures" from the house as it burned.
Is it a good use of emergency personnel to help rich folk save their "Treasure"?
I bet the rich folk get more fire fighters then the "Regular" folk.

[larry278]

Mr Murdoch could have somebody calculating whenever the NYT is chided for its failure to cover an event as a paper which really was a newspaper of record would cover the story on HP & other sites. The blogs about NYT's failures to live up to the NYT's past reputation as THE newspaper of record for the USA will encourage Mr Murdoch's ambition to use the WSJ & other Murdoch media to become the USA's de facto, #1 newspaper of record.
It isn't likely that Mr Sulzburger or his employees calculate, much less analyze the content of blogs like yours. Your blog could be used as a quality control instrument to evaluate NYT & to make changes to insure that the NYT regains its reputation as a newspaper of record. This might have induced a large stock holder to sell off the firm's large block of NYT stock. The NYT's 2 tier stock set up which locks in Sulzburger control of NYT played a part in the decision to divest too; but not a major part. The NYT is looking like a failing, senile, old woman in a nursing home. not an active, well groomed, old gray lady.

[Zanti]

"The blogs about NYT's failures to live up to the NYT's past reputation as THE newspaper of record for the USA will encourage Mr Murdoch's ambition to use the WSJ & other Murdoch media to become the USA's de facto, #1 newspaper of record."

What????

[NABNYC]

Every time I hear something about the castle burning, I cringe. And the lady who owned it was locally called "princess" something. It so typifies the nation's and the world's view of the silliness of Southern California to have anyone build a castle, or to have a castle for sale for $17.0 million.

Who cares if the castle burned down? It was built in 1970 by some rich guy who had apparently no brains and no intelligent ideas about what to do with his money. So he built a castle. Then I guess tired of it and sold it to someone else.

Now it's gone. Good. Although most likely someone will put up a bigger castle. "We won't be bowed by the fires: we'll build a bigger castle, and a better castle." For heaven's sake, even if someone just could have built a mansion like all the other people in Malibu. But a castle?

[JudyGee]

You can bet Allstate and the other one with the rock, will pay the insurance for all those rich slugs and especially for the castle, since an Iranian owns it. They won't be saying coverage doesn't include wind insurance. What crap. It's getting higher than my hat.

[Zanti]

Um.... First of all, I don't see the Times as anything close to middlebrow. Their writing is three or four levels above the prose of Newsweek, for instance.

Also, the elite attitude toward Elvis--i.e., the one held by PBS, NPR, and The Times--is worshipful in the extreme. The man is literally a god to these folks. If anything, The Times might have omitted the detail as not being worthy of their King. In the sense of not being serious enough. Elvis being the man they've mythologized into the creator of rock and roll.

In a logical world, elite media would see Elvis as a side-show diversion, not as a major figure of 20th century music. But we don't live in such a world.

Nobody hawks Elvis like the Times, except maybe Rolling Stone and PBS. He's the center of what they process as pop culture, so they would hardly be surprised by the rich daughter's devotion--they would expect it. They probably think our country is filled with indoor and backyard Elvis shrines.

[realitytrumpsbull]

One thing I did see reported in one of the
stories is that some of the fires are believed
to be arson...nevermind Elvis' army surplus,
where's Mr. 'lightning', there? Hmmm...