On Monday, Robert Ritchie, who performs under the name Kid Rock, found the body of his assistant on his property. Undeniably, this is news. On Tuesday, the police released the 911 call. Obviously, it's appropriate for the media to listen to the call to understand whether there's something newsworthy in the call. Newsworthiness might be if Kid Rock revealed in the call that his assistant had died during a human sacrifice or if he died rescuing a bus load of children. No media person was wrong for listening.
But it turns out that the guy just died in a very ordinary, terrible accident and all that could be gleaned from the 911 call is exactly what you'd expect in those circumstances: that the people who knew and liked him, who had to find his body, were devastated.
You don't have to hear the call. You don't even have to know what Kid Rock said to the dispatcher. You can just know that his assistant died in what appears to be a tragic accident. There's nothing newsworthy in someone's appropriate-to-the-circumstances anguish.
I'm not linking to any of the news stories about the call, because I can't stand it. Every one of them I've seen either lets you listen to the 911 call or writes it all out including all the nuances of pain in Ritchie's voice. And, Nashville, I have to ask, what the fuck is wrong with us?
Why would media outlets share this call? It's not news. There's nothing in the call that couldn't be reported without having to expose Ritchie's private trauma this way.
You know what they call a story with no news value? Entertainment.
Again, I ask, what is wrong with us? It's sick to put up audio of someone suffering so that people can be entertained by it. It's repugnant to listen to it. Yes, Ritchie is a famous person. That doesn't automatically make everything in his life, including a raw moment of tragedy, available for our entertainment. Or it shouldn't, anyway.
I don't have much patience for people who complain about all the newcomers moving here. We're Nashville. Hell yes, you're supposed to be able to come here from anywhere and follow your dreams. As many of you as can get here. Come on.
But one of the things that makes Nashville special is that we're the kind of place people can stay even after they've achieved their dreams. The way that works is that we don't bug country stars when we see them in the grocery store. We don't make it impossible for actors to go out to eat by insisting that they take a million pictures with everyone. We don't gawk and stare. We act like we've seen a famous person or two in our day, no biggie. Because, if you live in Nashville, you have and you will.
We're losing that. We're losing the charming way that anyone who lives here is just our neighbor and anyone who visits is a welcome guest. But what we're doing right now to Robert Ritchie indicates that we've farther gone than I suspected.
How we're treating him is proof that Nashville isn't the kind of place that a guy can move and just be a regular person when he wants to be. It's now the kind of place where a famous person's worst private moment is made available for the city to chew over. This poor guy can't even have a tragedy in peace, without having to be available for our consumption.
I don't know if we can turn back from this awfulness, but I hope we do. Robert Ritchie is a real person who suffered a real tragedy and he's our neighbor. We're failing, devastatingly, to treat him as such. Shame on us.
