Obit. Page #5

---

It becomes a little love affair in a sense,

and they're important to you.

And I think you bring that feeling,

that warmth,

that you develop over time, to all these people,

to the specific one you're doing at a given time.

Sometimes the backs of their books are on my desk,

and I'm often being looked at by the person

that I'm writing about and, in a way,

I feel their presence in the sense that--

not so much, you know, telling me anything,

but telling me not to misrepresent me.

You know, "get me right.

Do me right."

The music is so wonderful.

I'm coming to the bell.

You can't go fast.

Manson Whitlock was a crotchety old gent

who for 40, 50, 60 years,

when this was a routine and ubiquitous thing to do,

repaired typewriters.

He worked on manuals lovingly, electrics grudgingly,

and computers not at all.

And when he died in 2014,

he was holding fast to the old ways.

And there seemed to be just enough work for him

that he was able to hang on.

I started to think,

what sounds do a typewriter make?

Because it's this music that this man,

like the last member of a community

that knows the old songs, was helping to keep alive.

Now that he's gone, what's going to happen to that music?

The finality of that?

Or this?

Just a minute, George.

Bill, how long is the Wilson obit supposed to be?

Eight hundred words, maybe?

Yeah, 800 words sounds about right.

We were talking yesterday about whether or not

this should be an obituary

that has an ordinary news lede

or an anecdotal lede, and

I think my first attempt, anyway,

is gonna be to write an anecdotal lede,

to talk about the history first.

You know, to create the moment in history that--

in which this guy was significant

rather than to begin with "William P. Wilson

who did such-and-such, died."

We do anecdotal ledes occasionally

when, you know, when it calls for it,

so I think I'm gonna give that a shot.

So have you written the lede yet?

I haven't because, his being in advertising,

clever writer, kind of puts a special demand

on the obit writer to try to at least suggest,

you know, that quality of cleverness.

So I'm struggling with the lede.

Trying to figure out how to get, you know,

jiggling tummies and crushed cigarettes

into one sentence that's coherent.

And I can't figure it out yet, and it's already 3:30.

One of the many perks of working at The New York Times,

free coffee.

We write obituaries according to the scale

of the individual.

So we make these calculations.

We actually put word lengths on human beings, you might say.

A reporter will often come to us and say,

"How many words do you want on this person?"

And we'll say, mmm...600?

Maybe 800.

Nine hundred tops, because if you go over that,

you are making a statement.

If you write 1,000 or 1,400 words on someone

who you originally thought is worth,

in terms of news judgment, 800 words,

to write 1,400, you're going overboard

and you're sending the wrong signal,

in a way, to the reader.

We're not making judgments

about anybody's worthiness as a human being,

but we are making news judgments

about newsworthiness, and so the most prominent,

the kings and the presidents and the movie stars

who just capture the public attention

are gonna get a big obituary.

Maybe a page, maybe two.

I think the Pope's obituary, Pope John Paul,

went something like 15,000 words.

So they are signals, they're visual cues.

Size of pictures.

Number of pictures.

Someone may be worth two pictures,

some may be worth three.

It's the one department in the paper

where we can't rely on a staff of, you know,

excellent photographers.

We have to rely on what's there.

Sometimes there's virtually nothing

that we can find on them,

and so we'll be desperate to find even a head shot,

because we like to run a picture of every subject

with every obituary, if we can.

It's almost a parlor game in some ways.

Who deserves to be on page one,

and not only who deserves to be on page one,

but where on the page?

Above the fold--l mean we still have these conversations.

One day the newspaper will be no more

and "above the fold" will be a term

that will have to go to the dustbin.

I don't put the obit on page one.

It's a judgment call that the managing editors make.

I propose it, and we have a 4 o'clock meeting

for the print paper every day

and the various department heads gather

with various other people,

and they essentially are pitching, selling,

a story that they think should be on the front page.

And sometimes it's automatic,

it's a story that no one would disagree

should be on the front page,

but sometimes an obituary is--

it provokes some discussion.

We've had some very lively discussions

about whether someone is worth--

worthy of page one.

In most cases, the obituary doesn't go on page one.

We might get what we call a "refer,"

which is essentially a little blurb

at the bottom of the page,

which is the next best thing to a front page obit.

Another little visual cue,

which I don't know if readers are onto,

but it's the obit that has the verb,

which is the word "dies" or "is dead," is the lead obit--

it's the most prominent obit of the day.

The lead verb governs the rest of the page.

So you don't have to say everybody is dead.

It's pretty clear that if you're on the obituary page,

you're dead.

We don't use euphemisms like "passed away,"

"taken away by the angels to heavenly rest,"

"was clasped to the Lord's bosom,"

"surrounded by his loving family,"

any of this sort of Hallmark card language

that softens the experience

or gives emotional cast to it that's,

in our view, inappropriate to the newspaper.

Every one of us is going to die,

and that's the word in English that we use for it.

I grew up in Clear Lake, Iowa,

and this is the Clear Lake Mirror from 1930.

And my great-grandmother is the subject of this obituary:

"As the sun sank below the western horizon

Tuesday, April 1st, the soul of Mrs. H.E. Palmetter

was loosed from its moorings,

and she passed over the great divide.

It was a fitting instance that as the sun ceased to shine

in the evening, the life of this noble woman

ceased its work and she was at rest.

In a lonely grave in the silent city,

her body calmly slumbers,

careless alike of sunshine and storm.

But over it too the sunset will glow with purple and red,

and the fleecy clouds roll by

and far above it will shine the brilliant stars of heaven."

What we do now is, of course, the opposite of that

and, um, I don't think a lot is lost,

but it certainly says how the culture has changed.

As anyone who's ever read

a Times obit will have encountered,

we do have to have the requisite second paragraph

that says either what the cause of death was

or "the family confirmed the death,"

or words to that effect.

Now, why do we have that?

The reason is simple, but it's ironclad.

Many years ago, a writer here, now retired,

Rate this script:0.0 / 0 votes