Categotry Archives: Media

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Najai Turpin

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Categories: Media, Sports

nturpin.jpgNajai Turpin, a contestant on the new NBC reality show, “The Contender,” committed suicide on Feb. 14. He was 23.

The Philadelphia native was an aspiring middleweight boxer known as Nitro. Described in his show bio as soft spoken and polite, Turpin cared for his younger brother, sister, niece and nephew after his mother died in 2000. At 5 feet 5 inches and 151 lbs., Turpin had a career record of 13 wins, 1 loss and 9 knockouts.

Before landing a spot on the new TV series, Turpin did construction work in the mornings and toiled at a Philadelphia restaurant in the evenings. Early Monday, he shot himself in the head with a small caliber semiautomatic weapon while sitting in a parked car outside the gym where he trained. His girlfriend, Angela Chapple, had just exited the vehicle when he took his own life. Turpin left no suicide note.

In the week before his death, Turpin twice left a boxing camp because he couldn’t focus on his training. Although Chapple has declined all interview requirests, she put out a statement that said the couple had “more love than issues.” Turpin is survived by his 2-year-old daughter, Anyae.

“The Contender” is a 13-episode series that follows the personal and professional lives of 16 boxers vying for a $1 million prize. Network executives said Turpin’s untimely death will not delay the show’s debut on March 7 or alter its ending. All of the show’s bouts have already been taped, except for its live championship, which will take place in May.

Turpin is not the first reality show contestant to take his own life. In 1997, Sinisa Savija, a participant on the Swedish version of the show “Survivor,” committed suicide after he was voted off the island. Last summer, Jose Maria, the winner of the first Portugal edition of the show “Big Brother,” threatened to kill himself by jumping off a bridge. Two policemen eventually hoisted him to safety.

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Doc Abraham

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Categories: Media, Military, Writers/Editors

For 50 years, George “Doc” Abraham and his wife Katy offered advice to amateur and expert gardeners. The Abrahams debuted on WHAM 1180-AM in Rochester, N.Y., in 1952. Their half-hour call-in show, “The Green Thumb,” featured poetry recitations and advice on flowers, vegetable gardens and lawn care. The popular gardening program also aired on WOKR-TV Channel 13 for many years.
Health problems forced the couple to broadcast their final show on Dec. 14, 2002, but they continued to teach gardening classes in the Finger Lakes region. For hosting one of the longest-running shows on American radio, the Abrahams were inducted into the Rochester Radio Hall of Fame.
Born in Wayland, N.Y., Abraham was only five years old when he decided to become a plant doctor. From that point on, everyone — including his neighbor Katy — called him “Doc.” Abraham and Katy both graduated from Cornell University with double degrees in horticulture and journalism. During World War II, he served with the U.S. Army in North Africa while she worked at a munitions plant in Ithaca, N.Y. They wed in 1942 while he was on a 36-hour leave.
After the war, Abraham and Katy opened a small greenhouse business, had two children, Darryl and Leanna, and began writing a gardening column. Syndicated in 130 newspapers, the column once reached 5 million readers; it still appears in dozens of small newspapers and magazines. The couple also published 16 gardening books, including “The Green Thumb Garden Handbook,” “Green Thumb Wisdom: Garden Myths Revealed!” and “Growing Plants From Seed.” Abraham’s autobiography, “A Bathtub Built for Two,” will hit store shelves this summer.
Abraham died on Jan. 27 of complications from congestive heart failure. He was 89. The gardening guru and his co-host wife always ended their radio program with a simple sign-off: “Goodbye, friends. We gotta grow now!”
• Listen to a Tribute From NPR

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Kate Peyton

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Categories: Media, Writers/Editors

Kate Peyton, a producer for the British Broadcasting Corp., was murdered on Feb. 9 while on assignment in Somalia. She was 39.
Peyton had only been in Mogadishu for a few hours when an unknown militiaman gunned her down outside the Sahafi Hotel. Shot in the back, she later died in surgery from internal bleeding. BBC reporter Peter Greste was with Peyton during the shooting, but he escaped injury.
Although she was raised in Suffolk, England, Peyton loved Africa and was devoted to sharing stories about its people. Based in Johannesburg, she had covered the continent for the BBC for the past 12 years. Peyton also worked as a producer and trainer for the South African Broadcasting Corp., and occasionally filed stories with National Public Radio in the United States.
The British journalist went to Somalia to do a series of reports on the country, which has not had a functioning national government for 14 years. Although rival warlords continue to battle for control of its capital city, members of the transitional government plan to return on Feb. 21 and stabilize the region. Since Mogadishu doesn’t have a working police force, no formal investigation has been launched to bring Peyton’s killer to justice.
“Kate was one of our most experienced and respected foreign affairs producers who had worked all over Africa and all over the world. She will be greatly missed, both professionally and personally,” BBC Director of News, Helen Boaden, said.
At least eight foreign journalists have been killed covering Somalia since 1991.

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Ivan Noble

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Categories: Media, Writers/Editors

inoble.jpgWhen British Broadcasting Corp. journalist Ivan Noble was diagnosed with a malignant brain tumor in 2002, he decided to chronicle his battle with cancer in an online journal.
Noble’s “tumor diary,” which ran for three years on the BBC News Website, featured stories about his radiotherapy, chemotherapy and brain surgeries. He wrote more than 60 entries in order to demystify the disease and to fight the powerlessness he felt. Thousands of people from all over the world read Noble’s diary on the Web and sent him encouraging feedback. He once said their words helped keep him alive. Noble experienced two periods of remission, but the tumor returned late last year.
Born in Leeds, England, Noble studied German at the University of Aston in Birmingham. He spent two years working as a translator in East Germany before joining the BBC. Prior to becoming the news Website’s science and technology correspondent, Noble worked as a sub-editor in Nairobi and trained other reporters in online journalism techniques.
Noble died on Feb. 1 at the age of 37. He is survived by his wife and two young children. Noble’s final column, written last year in anticipation of being too ill to work, was posted on Sunday. A collection of his diary entries will be published in book form later this year with all proceeds going to charity.
“What I wanted to do with this column was try to prove that it was possible to survive and beat cancer and not to be crushed by it,” Noble wrote. “Even though I have to take my leave now, I feel like I managed it. I have not been defeated.
• Read Noble’s Tumor Diary

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Susan Sontag

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Categories: Hollywood, Media, Writers/Editors

ssontag.jpgSusan Sontag, an author and social critic, died on Dec. 28 from complications of acute myelogenous leukemia. She was 71.
Born Susan Rosenblatt in 1933, the New York native spent her early years in Tucson, Ariz., and Los Angeles. She skipped three grades and graduated from high school at 15. Although her mother warned that constant reading would keep men away, Sontag refused to heed this advice. The 17-year-old bibliophile was attending the University of Chicago when she sat in on a lecture by 28-year-old sociologist Philip Rieff. They were married 10 days later. The couple had a son, David, but divorced in the mid-1960s.
Sontag earned master’s degrees in English and philosophy from Harvard University, studied in England and France, then moved to New York City. In 1964, she launched a career as a professional writer when she published the essay “Notes on Camp” in the Partisan Review. Sontag followed that up with critical studies and essay collections on disease (“Illness as Metaphor & AIDS and Its Metaphors”), culture (“Where the Stress Falls”) and still pictures (“On Photography”).
Although “On Photography” received a National Book Critics Circle award in 1978, Sontag partially refuted her thesis (that photography had desensitized people from understanding true suffering) 25 years later in the essay collection, “Regarding the Pain of Others.” She also wrote the introduction to “Women,” a photography collection by her long-time companion Annie Leibovitz.
A self-described “obsessed moralist,” Sontag actively campaigned for human rights and social equality. In the early 1990s, she called for the international community to respond to the genocide occurring in Rwanda and Bosnia. Days after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, Sontag sparked much debate when she bashed U.S. foreign policy and commented on the courage of the hijackers. In an essay published in The New Yorker, she wrote: “

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