In death news, it was a hectic week. There was the man who played bass for Cream, the guy who wrote ‘The Tide is High’ and the woman who was the ‘mum’ in the Oxo adverts. Then there was also the man who played the ‘da-dun-dun-dadada!’ saxophone part on Baker Street. Oh, and Alvin Stardust.
But perhaps most poignantly, for those in our business, arguably the world’s greatest ever newspaper editor.
I mention them all in that manner not to simplify their complex lives, but to demonstrate that a) there are an awful lot of celebrity deaths lately and b) there’s really a lot of ways to be considered obit-worthy now.
In the 30s and 40s, there were relatively few ways to become what we’d now define as “famous”.
But then BOOM! The 50s. The birth of Rock ‘n’ Roll. The start of television in our homes. Affordable technology for buying music and having it at home. Elvis Presley. The Beatles. And then the swinging 60s! The Stones! Motown! My Dad’s perm! It was all going on.
It was an era of live fast, die young. Except, of course, most didn’t.
Sure, there’s the only two Beatles left, and the 27 Club stopped others in their tracks, but really the celebrities of the 50s and 60s are now approaching their 70s, 80s and 90s. It means, naturally, they’re beginning to die of old age.
With each passing, coverage must ensue — these lives can’t end without being noted, applauded, respected.
As we’re starting to see a flood of notable deaths, barely a bulletin goes by without news of someone passing on.
It’s crude to point it out, but online, death = traffic. And the viral potential of having the “best tribute” to a celebrity that has passed will ensure visitors from the world over, and a high Google ranking for searches on that celebrity for years to come.
Right now, newsrooms react in two ways to a famous death. First, the shock death — Michael Jackson, Robin Williams, Amy Winehouse. The ones nobody saw coming (or at least, saw coming at that precise moment). It’s all hands to the pump. One side of the operation establishing the facts — Overdose? Suicide? — while the other is busy pulling together parts of the person’s life. Sadly, this leads many to resort to simply publishing a selection of YouTube videos in an attempt to get something out there quickly — as if a life is defined by how often people could be bothered to infringe the copyright of the now-deceased’s work.
The other is the expected death — Nelson Mandela, Ian Paisley, and indeed, Lynda Bellingham (for different reasons).
Here, the obit team (or, more likely, the one person tasked with obits in a newsroom) will have prepared something to go live in the event of someone’s death. It’s a careful job — going to people who know and love a person, and asking them to talk about them as if they were no longer with us. It will be measured, careful and, too often, a bit boring and predictable. More on that later.
Whether a shock death or an expected one, coverage of celebrities passing on gathers big audiences. We like to feel nostalgic. We like to share our feelings, especially on social media — particularly when it’s a slightly off-the-beaten-track death. Noting the death of, say, a fashion designer gives us the chance to show what well-rounded, cultural people we are. It’s mourning for showing off’s sake, and that’s OK.
Most conventions in journalism have been dragged kicking and screaming into the modern era. Many an old-timer’s heart has been broken when traffic analysis shows that a three-month long investigation (3,000 words) has been completely overlooked by readers in favour of a numbered list of something far less important.
The trick, of course, is to present the investigation in way that suits the new way of reading. That attitude change is happening, slowly.
I’m not suggesting we reduce lives to “9 Times Nelson Mandela Totally Saved The Day” or such-like, but instead we reassess how to create, quickly, modern-day obituaries that cover death in a way that doesn’t leave readers fatigued and fed-up.
We also need to worry about saturation. The bar for what is considered a notable, famous death needs to be lifted. Globally-known, game-changing, era defining — that’s the top-end, that’s in the News at Ten. It’s the trailblazers, not the imitators, even if they are successful in their own right.
What of the rest? Well — how about bringing back death notice columns? Although, let’s call them something nicer. Notable Lives, something like that.
Here, great writers can cover interesting, fascinating deaths — not just famous ones — in a regular way that doesn’t feel like its flooding homepages with morbid news of people dying all the time.
Newsrooms need to invest in creating a kit of parts to help journalists write obituaries in compelling ways. Data journalists and programmers should code algorithms that automatically scrape data from various sources to give an immediate picture of a person’s life. IMDB, Wikipedia, social media — but also the more negative side, such as court records. For famous people who are digitally-active — posting tweets, pictures, music etc — we should use this wealth of data to generate an interactive picture of a person’s life, a sense of their personality and humour.
Can you tell the story of someone’s life with an algorithm? Clearly not, but like the reporter who used technology to auto-write an earthquake report, giving him time to do tasks only a human could, so too could auto-generated death news be of use.
“Beyond recounting the achievements of obvious big hitters – whether Nobel winner or Hollywood star – it is the job of the obits editor, to my mind, to root out the fascinating quirks and extremes of life: the wonderfully inept, the astonishingly inane, even the possibly insane. One can only marvel at the panorama on offer.” —Harry de Quetteville, former obituaries editor, Daily Telegraph.
Yet famous doesn’t necessarily mean interesting, and my god, truly interesting rarely means famous. That’s why investment from news organisations into obituary teams will yield some of the most brilliant pieces of copy from unexpected sources. That quote above, published just yesterday, comes via the Telegraph’s obit desk (yes, desk. Not person. A team!) which, to my mind, is the best in the world.
It is on their pages, sort-of paywalled, where the true craft of obituary writing is on show. Like this, from 2002 — one of the best introductions to an obituary you’re ever likely to read:
“Graham Mason, the journalist who has died aged 59, was in the 1980s the drunkest man in the Coach and Horses, the pub in Soho where, in the half century after the Second World War, a tragicomedy was played out nightly by its regulars.”
These are the sorts of lives worth reading about and celebrating, and sometimes its only in the obituaries column where these people are talked about.
Imagine that when you die, two people speak at your funeral. One’s your best friend, the other’s your boss. The boss might be able to give a rundown of your career achievements, and what you accomplished over your life. But it’s your best friend who will have those attending in tears, or in fits of laughter, remembering your life. The brilliant obituaries play the role of the best friend, while the bad, lazy ones are the boss.
But to go back to the thoughts of Harry de Quetteville, he says there’s just one very key qualification needed to be a successful obit writer — and that’s curiosity.
(Cemetery photo: Henry Lawford/Flickr)
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