A Global Take on Whitney's Death

Among the crush of journalists covering Whitney Houston’s funeral yesterday was a large contingent of foreign press. At the staging area for media set up about a block from New Hope Baptist Church, a babel of voices could be heard speaking into mikes for home audiences as far afield as Japan and Australia.

Patch spoke with a few of those correspondents yesterday to learn how news of the 48-year-old pop diva’s untimely death played in their homelands.

Paula Ginestar, a correspondent for Spanish television, said Houston’s loss was compared to that of another iconic African-American singer, the 2009 passing of Michael Jackson, a comparison made by other foreign journalists yesterday.

But, Ginestar added, many Spaniards were put off by the sheer scope of the coverage of Houston’s death, which dominated the news here since Houston was found in a Beverly Hills hotel last Saturday.

Spaniards “think that here, it is too big, it’s too much. In Spain it’s not like that. Here, it’s much more exaggerated.”

In Quebec, Houston “was much more appreciated for her songs than her stage performances,” said Mike Gauthier, a Montreal-based entertainment journalist. Gaultheir, too, could not resist the Michael Jackson comparison.

Jackson’s loss was felt more acutely in Quebec because he was known as much for his thrilling stage shows as for his recorded music, where Houston performed live just once in the Canadian province. But, Gauthier added, “her most popular songs were the same as here.”

In Japan, Houston was especially popular during her most productive years, from her mid-1980s debut up until the turn of the century, Makoto Kido, of the Tokyo Broadcasting System, said though a translator.

Still, Houston’s passing “has been all over the entertainment news,” Kido said. “It’s on a par with Michael Jackson’s death.”

Houston’s personal problems -- in her marriage, her struggles with narcotics, her financial difficulties -- for years have been fodder for the America tabloid media. Not so in Japan, Kido added.

“Japanese media doesn’t cover the difficulties of celebrities. Drugs are much more taboo in Japan...it’s kept much more private.”

In England, where musicians have long influenced, and have been influenced by, their American counterparts, the reaction to Houston’s death was much the same as it was here in the States, said Nick Dorman, a journalist with The Mirror Group. Her death has “dominated” coverage for the past week, he said, largely because Houston remained popular among the English right up until her death.

“We have X-Factor [the televised singing competition] and Whitney’s songs are performed widely,” Dorman said. Her appeal spans generations too: Houston’s songs may be “something somebody’s mom would have loved, but [younger people] sing them too on karaoke.”

Charlotte Harder of the Danish Broadcasting Corporation said Houston held a powerful nostalgic appeal for many Danes, with her songs bringing people to mind of when “they were young and beautiful.”

Harder, borrowing from one of Houston’s signature hits, “Didn’t We Almost Have it All,” also said the ultimately tragic arc of Houston’s life says something generally about the high price of fame -- a subject Houston herself ruefully discussed in interviews.

“You can never have it all, even though she sang about having it all,” Harder said. “I think that speaks to something in human nature.”