Some News Organizations Have Hundreds of Obituaries Ready to Publish
By Angela Fu for Poynter
On Sept. 8 at 6:30 p.m. in London, the royal family announced that Queen Elizabeth II had died. Less than two hours later, the Guardian published a 7,000-word obituary.
That obituary was 10 years in the making.
“The Guardian — I suspect like other newspapers as the queen grew pretty old — decided that they better have an obituary ready for the day when it actually came to pass,” said Stephen Bates, the freelance journalist who wrote the obituary. “It’s taken longer than I think we expected at that stage.”
Many news organizations keep prewritten obituaries, known as “advance obituaries,” of influential figures on hand, ready to publish at a moment’s notice. The Washington Post, which has roughly 900 of these stories on file, updated their obituary on the queen when news broke that she was under medical supervision. By the time the royal family confirmed her death, the Post was ready. The obituary was published just one minute after the official announcement.
Newspapers didn’t always take this approach to obituaries, said Washington Post obituary editor Adam Bernstein. When he arrived at the desk in 1999, the Post treated many obituaries as daily stories, written after the subject had died. There was also a greater focus on local news with only very occasional stories about national or international deaths.
“But over the next 10 years, as the internet became where you want to break news as opposed to in the next day’s newspaper, the need to build up the advance obituaries bank became urgent,” Bernstein said.
A similar shift took place 30 years ago in British papers, said Bates. Obituaries used to be straightforward, “somewhat boring” reads that were written in a rush after a person’s death, he said. But editors realized that readers wanted a more well-rounded picture of a person’s life.
To get an advance obituary, one generally has to be a well-known public figure. John Pope, a freelance journalist based in New Orleans, said he looks for people who are notable and whose obituaries would require a lot of time to report. One example he pointed to was former New Orleans Mayor Moon Landrieu, who served in all three branches and levels of government.
“You can’t just have been a celebrity or politician or criminal or a Mardi Gras monarch. But there’s something extra — an X-factor,” Pope said. “It comes down to finding people who make a difference, who are worth the time and effort you put into this.” For more, click here.