Obit Research

A prevalent topic throughout our work the last several weeks has regarded the “featured” obit — a story of life, not death.  As has been previously highlighted on this blog, The Economist applies this theme in its obituary writing, choosing to focus on the anecdotes, accomplishments and biographical details of great lives lived, as opposed to the aspects of those figures’ demise.  Our research and conclusions have led us to believe that this approach is sound, and we believe it wise for publications to incorporate it.

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(John Thadeus Delane, courtesy of Wikipedia commons)

Kate and I had a brief, affable back and forth during discussion last week about the historical tone of obituaries — i.e., “Was the content presented directly and concisely or expressively and at length?”

Research has shown that obits have been on a creative upswing since their inception at the dawn of the printing press, beginning as short [death] notices and transforming into storytelling tools a few hundred years afterward.  Pinning down where and when this revolution took place was a much easier task than expected, and there was one particular man to thank.

A Google Archive search of the obituary’s history, though surely imperfect and hardly scientific, reveals a timeline increasingly populated by the mid- to late-1800s.  Per a bit of research, there was a name in journalism that, not coincidentally, was prevalent in regards to obit writing during that period: John Thadeus Delane, editor of The Times of London from 1841-77.

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ASHLEY (MARY BRILL):

I enjoyed this very local obituary in the Sacramento Bee about a 59-year-old community activist named Mary Brill. It’s a touching tribute to a woman who suffered multiple scelrosis, a brain tumor and other health ailments, yet remained a powerful and engaged advocate for local issues. It’s also interesting that the Sacramento Bee is not served by Legacy.com, that a fair number of people commented on the obituary, and that Ms. Brill was a single, unmarried woman.

ALINA (INDIRA GHANDI):

This is an old obit from 1984 of Indira Ghandi that was featured on the New York Times website for obits of people who died on this day in history. This obit of the Indian leader is not much like an obit at all. First of all it’s very long and it’s more like a long feature article with a headline and section breaks. I think this is a good example of the kind of reporting that can be done around people who have died, especially prominent ones.

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A recurring theme in the world of obituaries is the usage of an evenhanded tone in content.  For example, you’ll scant see a major media outlet disparage a recently deceased individual, because it’s appropriate, if at least customary, for the dead to be honored, not mocked — not even a little.

Still, it’s easy to see how political ideology could seep into an obituary of, well, anyone involved in politics, any celebrity with a political opinion, or, in the case of Kurt Vonnegut, a figure who represented a galvanized faction of agitated Americans during a time of great social turmoil.

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Well, maybe it’s not an opinion, because it’s hard to take issue with obituaries that celebrate lives.

What makes The Economist’s approach so unique — and laudable — is that, as editor Ann Wroe puts it, a chronological retelling of a person’s existence is, well, boring.  In short, it doesn’t do life justice.

During an October 2008 New York Public Library panel discussion (embedded video at bottom), she said:

“I think you do have to hone in on certain points in [life].  There will be one or two incidents that will really illuminate the whole thing.  I think it was Virginia Woolf who said that it might be possible to write a whole life out of one tiny incident — maybe even just two minutes — and I think that might be true.”

Take, for instance, the magazine’s obituary of Norman Borlaug, who died in September.  It didn’t begin by listing his day and place of birth, nor did it dive into details of his upbringing and education.  No, instead, it began to tell a story.

“AS DAWN broke over northern Mexico, Norman Borlaug wriggled from his sleeping bag. Rats had run over him all night, and he was cold. In a corner of the dilapidated research station where he had tried to sleep, he found a rusting plough. He took it outside, strapped the harness to himself, and began, furiously and crazily, in front of a group of astonished peasants, to plough the land.”

Hook. Line. Sinker.

Here’s the man’s commemoration: an anecdote about the time he defiantly pushed a plough through a third-world field, a metaphor for his commitment to becoming a “feeder of the world”.

Obituaries are opportunities to do more than recall facts, and the realization makes The Economist stand out.  Whether that mode of storytelling will transition to the Web as journalism makes its shift remains to be seen.  But this project will certainly look for clues that may hint at an answer.

[Note: The panel discussion is entitled "DEAD from the NYPL: The Perverse Pleasures of Obituaries", and the entire video is worth a watch (Ms. Wroe's contributions begin somewhere around the 1:15 mark).]