Obituaries: In the newspaper business, obituary writing is serious stuff usually, but The Guardian has just run an amusing takeoff on obits--thank Jane Smiley who posted the link a few hours ago. As an ex obit writer myself, it caught my attention, made me remember my days in the Times newsroom on West 43rd Street. The daily paper was 96 pages then, more than twice as thick as now, and there were always many obituaries, unlike now when three seems to be the limit. We, the reporters, were regularly assigned to write them, mostly of people not dead yet, some of whom failed to die for months or years in the future. Every public figure, especially the very old or very sick--that is, judged by the editors about to cash out--got an obit written in advance, and ex-presidents and the like merited pre written obits that would fill an entire newspaper page when the time came. These were updated regularly and were even kept in type up in the composing room ready to go, sometimes for years. The Times was nothing if not prepared. Because all of us were assigned to write obits from time to time they were much on our minds and during slow news days some of our number amused themselves by writing their own obits, or the obit of the guy at the next desk, and some of these went into the files for possible future use. Certain reporters came to specialize in major obits, wrote them beautifully and became somewhat famous. Alden Whitman comes to mind. The rest of us got assigned smaller, last minute things on lesser figures who, even as we wrote, were cooling out fast. I spent most of my six years on the Times as a correspondent in Europe and, briefly, North Africa, only the last four months in New York in the newsroom, so I only got to write one obit. It was about a man famous for being Greta Garbo's escort. I had never heard of him, and it's hard to believe he would not make the cut today. I only had an hour to write it. I phoned frantically around trying to find out who he was, trying to find people to say nice things about him. I never got through to Greta and couldn't wait for her, so I can't regale you with that particular anecdote. But I have sometimes wondered if she ever read my piece and (like all writers) what she thought of it.
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12/20/2019 05:35:57 am
I don't know these people you have mentioned above, that's why I want to focus on the idea of obituary that you had. I got the chance to know it because it was taught to us during my high school days. We were taught about the various parts of newspaper. Obituary is a sad part of a newspaper because it announces a death of someone and several details about its funeral. I don't know if the newspaper publishers still do it these days.
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