THE NEWS FROM EVEREST:
Narrative Production on Everest, 1996

Professor Susan Birrell, Department of American Studies
University of Iowa

Thursday, 21st March 2013, 5.30-6.30pm
Greynore Hall, Darley Road, Eastbourne Campus

In 1996, news of a climbing tragedy on Mt Everest that claimed ten lives, several of them clients on commercially run expeditions, introduced a new generation to the storied history of Mt Everest. But what sort of introduction did this particular story and the ways it was told provide to this audience?

In this paper I explore how the story unfolded as it moved through the mediating process, from the more immediate sources – online expedition dispatches, news accounts – to the more deliberate narratives that appeared weeks or even years later in magazines, books such as Into Thin Air, and documentaries. I use critical narrative theory to discuss how certain plotlines emerged and disappeared.