Death of obituaries
Bloomberg's accidental premature publication of Steve Jobs' obituary makes me wonder: Are obituaries obsolete?
...In the print world, with rare exceptions a person's death was the only occasion that would justify the publication of that person's life story. But the Internet has changed the way we deal with time, just as it has collapsed space. Everything is available now ... and that isnt limited to reports of recent events.
The modern obit writer may serve the subject better by amassing a collection of suitable links: to a biography, video interviews, best writings, most famous quotes, etc. Yelvington may be right: The traditional obituary is already in the grave.
-- Steve Outing
I have great respect for Steve and Steve, but I think they're off target on this one.
Eventually, I suspect, an obit of links will do the trick. But we're not close to it yet.
If the Steves are talking about canned obits of celebrities and newsmakers, fine. But the other 99% of the people who die aren't Google-able. Or if they are, information on them and their life is hard to find and, once found, is incomplete. I know. I've tried it on the people on our obit page today. In addition, many of the people actually interested in reading obits are the core audience of newspaper readers.
These days, someone -- whether it is the newspaper or a family member -- needs to write up an obituary about a person's life.
Update: In a subsequent Twitter exchange, Yelvington suggests creating basically a people wiki of the area's population. The entries grow and mature as the people do. "Write 'em up while they can still enjoy it," he said. I like that.
Comments (3)
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One of my first newspaper mentors told me one of the most important parts of her job was writing a good news obit when it was necessary. There were few things she enjoyed more than doing it really well - really capturing the person's life there at the end and talking to people about what they'd done, what their lives were about.
I enjoy reading well done obits myself and have found a lot of satisfaction in doing them well, too.
Posted on August 29, 2008 3:11 PM
To clarify, I'm not advocating doing away with stories about peoples' lives ... I think that in many cases the stories should be published while they're still alive.
Posted on August 29, 2008 3:29 PM
Obits of the great and near great draw readers in print and online. Even as I write this, the lead story at Yahoo is an obit on Don LaFontaine, the voiceover artist who was famous for "in a world..." in movie previews.
Posted on September 2, 2008 3:03 PM