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Obituary / Newspaper Obituaries:
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Obituary
An obituary is a notice of the death of a person, usually published in a
newspaper, written or commissioned by the newspaper, and usually including a
short biography. It is similar to a death notice (also known as a funeral
notice), which is also published on the obituary page. A death notice is a
paid advertisement written by family members and placed in the newspaper
either by the family or the funeral home.
Writing obituaries
Because of the short time between the notification of a death and the next
publication deadline, many news organizations (such as the Associated Press)
have on file pre-written obituaries for notable individuals who are still
alive; these obituaries are updated when the well-known person dies.
Occasionally the author of an obituary will die before its subject. For
example, Walter Sullivan's obituary of the noted physicist James Van Allen
was published by the AP after Van Allen's death in 2006, even though
Sullivan predeceased Van Allen by almost a decade.[1]
In 2006, Bill McDonald of the New York Times answered readers' questions
about obituaries as part of the Times's Talk to the Newsroom feature. He
confirmed that the Times had over 1,200 obituaries on file, some written as
far back as 1982. He also said that the Times's policy was to always give
the cause of death when available and, since the publication of a premature
obituary for Katharine Sergava, to also always identify the person who
advised the newspaper of the death. The hope was that attribution would
reduce the chance of another embarrassing and (to the family) painful error.
[2]
Premature obituaries
By definition, obituaries should always be posthumous. But occasionally
obituaries are published, either accidentally or intentionally, while the
person concerned is still alive. Most are due to hoaxes, confusions between
people with similar names, or the unexpected survival of someone who was
close to death. Some others are published because of miscommunication
between newspapers, family members and the funeral home, often resulting in
embarrassment for everyone involved.
Irish author Brendan Behan said that there is no such thing as bad publicity
except your own obituary. In this regard, some people will seek to have an
unsuspecting newspaper editor publish a premature death notice or obituary
as a malicious hoax, perhaps to gain revenge on the "deceased". To that end,
nearly all newspapers now have policies requiring that death notices come
from a reliable source (such as a funeral home), though even this has not
stopped some pranksters such as Alan Abel.
Premature obituaries usually occur to famous people, such as Bob Hope or
Pope John Paul II. One of the better known premature obituaries of recent
years is the August 2001 Daily Telegraph obituary of Dorothy Southworth
Ritter, the mother of American television star John Ritter.
Obituaries in particular publications
At The Times [of London], John Thadeus Delane [Editor, 1841-77] was the
first Editor who took a particular interest in obituaries. He recognised
that the death of an important person was an event that required the
publication of more than just a brief death notice. The first Obituaries
Editor of The Times was appointed in 1920.
Obituaries are a notable feature of The Economist, which publishes precisely
one full-page obituary per week, reflecting on the subject's life and
influence on world history. Past subjects have ranged from Ray Charles to
Uday Hussein.
The British Medical Journal encourages doctors to write their own obituaries
for publication after their death.
Pan Books publishes a series called The Daily Telegraph Book of Obituaries,
which are anthologies of obituaries under a common theme, such as military
obituaries, sports obituaries, heroes and adventurers, entertainers, rogues,
eccentric lives, etc.
External links and references
* The Smoking Gun: CNN.com premature obituaries
* Obituaries Research Guide - tips for finding obituaries
* Marilyn Johnson, The Dead Beat: Lost Souls, Lucky Stiffs, And The Perverse
Pleasure of Obituaries, Harper Perennial, ISBN 0-060758-76-7
* Alana Baranick, Jim Sheeler, and Stephen Miller, Life on the Death Beat: A
Handbook for Obituary Writers, Marion Street Press, ISBN 1-933338-02-4
* "How To Write An Obituary - A Step-by-Step Guide"
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