About to Die

<br> Why are some deaths fit spectacles for the camera and others off-limits? What philosophical and social purposes do news images serve? Barbie Zelizer answers such questions in this ambitious new book, a stunning examination of a little-explored aspect of modern journalism. --Phillip Knightley, author of The First Casualty: The War Correspondent as Hero and Myth-Maker From The Crimea To Kosovo<p><br> In Barbie Zelizer's most powerful, profound, and disturbing work, she shows that news photos do not document reality but are suspended precariously between the 'as is' and the 'as if, ' touching feelings, touching off imaginations. With an astonishing cascade of evidence about iconic news images and the stories behind them, Zelizer offers little comfort, no certainty, but much illumination. --Michael Schudson, author of Why Democracies Need an Unlovable Press<p><br> [About to Die] is an audacious and often chilling examination of how visual media handle the moment of death, from engravings of the Great Chicago Fire of 1871 to the Pacific tsunami of 2004. With an obvious and admitted debt to the academy's favorite photography buff Susan Sontag, Zelizer treats these images as both rare and powerful. --The Austin Chronicle<p><br> [An] enlightening new book --Slate.com<br><p><br> [Zelizer] produced an engaging history, with accounts of the best-known about-to-die images and their post-publication trajectories. --Obit-mag.com <br><p><br> If, like me, you think that Big Money exerts ever more influence on the way politics gets covered in this country; and if, like me, you think that Citizens United, the recent Supreme Court decision that lifts the lid on corporate campaign spending, will speed up, reinforce and otherwise extend this unfortunate trend; and if, like me, you believe that for the past fifty years the main way corporate money has worked its electoral will is by manipulating news images via television commercials (watch Mad Men if you don't believe me), m