In the NYT, Amy Winehouse > James Gandolfini

Their Gandolfini obit is on A19 today. In fairness, there's a bottom-of-the-page refer, but this is the death of a titan. It's an all-time news placement gaffe, in my book.

P.S. Ms. Winehouse got an A1 obit.

 

Gandolfini's death broke pretty late.

 

A little after 7, right?

 

That's the only excuse.

This is a lot bigger than Winehouse's death. A lot more people are talking about Gandolfini today than they were about Winehouse after she ODd.

 

I got the CNN text as I pulled in my driveway at about 7:45 ET.

 

It was high on the web site. That's all that matters.

 

I just checked. I sent the text to my wife at 7:33 ET - I was standing in line for food and saw the thread on this site. There just were a couple posts already, so I imagine it broke right about then.

 

I was thinking that, too. For a long time, the conventional wisdom seemed to be that it was silly for print newspapers to feature news that broke early in the day, which people had already known about for some time. But perhaps that thinking has been fundamentally altered: The analysis, with context and perspective, of stories that have been covered on the 24-hour networks all day long are what's valuable. Breaking news like this, less so. That said, seems like it would have been plenty of time to draft A.O. Scott or someone into penning a perspective piece for the cover.

I think they dropped the ball.

 

Death of Titan?
Really?

 

Yes. Absolutely. No question. Without a doubt. Inarguable.

 

Um .. no.
He was a one-role wonder. A memorable role, but a helluva long way from "a titan." The show ran what seven season? Great show. Great show, but it was his high-water mark. Kind of like Alan Alda with M.A.S.H.. And it hardly makes him a Titan.

 

I really can't think of too many performers whose death I'd say absolutely have to be on the front page of a national paper. Any member of the Beatles, sure, but I have hard time putting any TV star in that category and I'm about as big a TV fan as you'll find. Galdolfini and Chase redefined TV as an art form and he should get full credit for that, but it doesn't necessarily make it the most important story of the day. Jerry Seinfeld is probably more of an automatic A1 among TV stars because so many more people watched that show.

It's not really fair to compare whose death makes A1 and whose doesn't because as we all know things vary from day to day, but I will say this didn't seem like a particularly busy news day and it is a little surprising Winehouse was A1 and not Gandolfini.