Anyone who is familiar with this blog or has actually done some research on Jack Kevorkian knows that a lot of the news coverage related to his death has been pretty crappy. The New York Times, Huffington Post – even William Saletan at Slate – credit Kevorkian as someone who “helped” the “terminally ill” (although Saletan thinks he slipped on occasion and accidentally helped the suicide of someone who wasn’t dying).
As you can see from checking the resources on a recent post here, the claim that Jack Kevorkian’s campaign was aimed at helping the “terminally ill” is a load of fetid dingo kidneys. He never claimed (at least in his writings or before being managed by Mayer Morganroth) to be just concerned with “terminally ill” people. Kevorkian had a broader calling.
One of the few places you’ll see it laid out is in a piece at the satire site Spoof.com.
When you click on a link to a satirical article at Spoof, you are directed first to a disclaimer page, in which you are warned:
The story you are trying to access may cause offense, may be in poor taste, or may contain subject matter of a graphic nature.
This story was written as a satire or parody. It is entirely fictitious.
In most cases, that’s an accurate warning. And, to be fair, the article in question may be offensive to a lot of people.
But everything in the article is true.
Doubt that? Here’s a sample of “Response To Those Who Believe That Jack Kevorkian was An Angel Of Mercy“:
With respect to those that believe that Jack Kevorkian was a benevolent Angel of Mercy: You’re a f–king uninformed idiot.
Are you aware that at least 60 percent of Kevorkian’s suicide patients were not terminal? Do you know that at least 17 could have lived indefinitely? Are you aware that in THIRTEEN cases, Kevorkian killed people that had NO complaints of pain or quality of life issues?
Obviously not. Dolt.
Before rendering your opinion, did you know that in 1992, Kevorkian wrote it is always mandatory to bring in a psychiatrist because a person’s “mental state is . . . of paramount importance,” yet, in at least 19 cases, Kevorkian did not contact psychiatrists? Or that in at least five of these cases, the people who died had histories of depression?
Doubt it. Asshat.
There’s more. But you get the drift. The author – defamationstation – is sharing more factual information about Jack Kevorkian than you’ll find reading CNN, Washington Post, or the New York Times (with the exception of one column by Ross Douthat, which I’ll write about later tonight or tomorrow morning).
That’s the world we live in, apparently. The so-called “respected” news sources and columnists give us an inaccurate and sanitized account of Jack Kevorkian. Instead, we have to go to humor site – where it can get published only because it runs under the guise of being satire – and fictional.
Maybe some of the so-called news media – print, online, etc. – ought to consider running a disclaimer warning people that some of their content might be fictional and they’ll have to sort the fiction from the fact for themselves. That would be some real truth in reporting.