Cover image | stills from "Falling Leaves to the Roots"
Wen | Feng Ma Niu (WeChat public number: Feng Lun Feng Ma Niu)
01
Send the deceased on their last journey
"You're so nice," said Alex [a parrot used in science experiments], "I love you."
"I love you too."
"Will you come tomorrow?"
"Yes, I'll come tomorrow."
But that night, Alex passed quietly in his cage, drawing a pause for a lifetime of learning complex tasks. People originally thought that those were skills that only primates could master.
This is the beginning of an obituary published in the well-known British business magazine The Economist, "The Dead" is the most famous parrot in the history of science, died in 2007, at the age of 31. Alex is said to be an abbreviation for the Avian Learning Experiment (Alex) of the "Bird Learning Experiment" project.
Alex the Parrot's Obituary is included in the Obituary as a second story. The Obituary is a collection of 201 obituarys previously published in The Economist magazine and was recently translated and published in China, with the original being released in 2008.
One of the authors of the book, Ann Rowe, is the editor and chief writer of the Obituary Column of The Economist. Since the magazine launched its Obituary in 1995, each issue has ended with an obituary and is well known in the industry. It has been said that no hearse can gracefully send the dead on their last journey than The Economist's obituary.
Last year, three Chinese entered Ann Luo's vision and hitched a ride on this "hearse": Yuan Longping, the "father of rice", who is well known in China, Yang Huaiding, who earned the first pot of gold from the stock market after the reform and opening up, and Wang Fuchun, a recorder and photographer of "Chinese on the Train".
In a recent interview, Ann Row reiterated the criteria for selecting the protagonist of the obituary: the criteria for candidates have not changed since the obituary edition was launched, their lives must be interesting and thought-provoking, and it does not matter whether they conform to the usual sense of "good". We do not blindly praise and praise the dead. Keith (another author) has a particular preference for small people, even if they die at the same time. Obituary makes it clear that almost everyone has a story in their life that is worth listening to.
As you may not know, obituaries are one of the most popular pages in British and American newspapers. The United States has the "Three Chiefs of Obituary": The New York Times, The Washington Post, and The Los Angeles Times; the United Kingdom is the "Big Four": The Daily Telegraph, The Guardian, The Independent, and The Times. Many newspapers have obituaries that not only report on deceased political and business celebrities, but also spare no effort to publish for a large number of ordinary people.
Source: Documentary "Obit"
Why is obituary so important?
"Someone's death is important because their lives are so important." New York Times obituary reporter Sam Roberts said. The New York Times is a benchmark for U.S. obituary, publishing an average of more than 1,000 obituaries each year and a large obituary library.
In the U.S., every celebrity probably has two questions: How many inappropriate photos of me have been left on the internet? And, has the New York Times written a good obituary for me?
It is common practice in the press to write obituaries in advance for well-known people who are old or seriously ill. In 2016, when one of The New York Times obituary authors retired, he left "An Obituary for the Obituary Career" as a farewell letter, in which he mentioned:
The most ironic thing about retiring from the obituary department is that I may be gone, but you won't get rid of me completely. My signature will probably continue to appear for months, or even years, because the protagonist of the forty or fifty obituary I wrote is still alive—in the jargon of the unkind obituary circle called "the future dead." Perhaps, my signature will even appear once or twice after my own death. By the way, this is not something I aspire to happen.
The press called these pre-written obituaries "pre-drafts." In the industry, the New York Times has the most "pre-drafts", with more than 1,000 copies.
These "pre-drafts" often cause trouble.
In 2008, Bloomberg News published an obituary from Apple CEO Steve Jobs, but the truth is that Jobs was safe. The 2,500-word obituary provides an informative account of Jobs' life and praises his contributions to the information technology and entertainment industries. Bloomberg later explained that when employees updated the editorial system data that day, they mistakenly made Jobs's "backup" obituary public.
In 2011, a misunderstanding regrettably became a reality. Under the obituary of Jobs on the New York Times website, nearly 1500 comments were accumulated like 1500 flowers around the tomb, and readers poured into the "virtual cemetery" to mourn the man who changed the world.
The retirement obituary author's reference to "his signature continuing to appear after his own death" is by no means unfounded. The New York Times prepared bin Laden's obituary for 10 years, and in 2010, before bin Laden was arrested, one of the authors of his obituary, Michael Kaufman, died, and a year later, the protagonist of the obituary was killed by the U.S. military.
In April 2020, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson was admitted to the intensive care unit with the new crown infection, and the first reaction of Andrew Brown, an obituary reporter for the British "Daily Telegraph", was shock. The obituary journalist, in his 50s and about the prime minister's age, felt the threat of COVID-19 so close to him, but then a professional sense of urgency prevailed – he had to add a member to the newspaper's "pre-manuscript library".
To put it bluntly, there is no doubt that the Queen of England, who is 95 years old and has repeatedly reported her death, has entered the "pre-draft library" of major media in Europe and the United States. In britain, it is an open secret that the royal family has made funeral plans for its members in advance. Industry insiders believe that Queen Elizabeth II even personally participated in the formulation and revision of her own "funeral plan". Then it is not excluded that the official obituary of the royal family and the eulogy at her own funeral have also been seen by the queen.
Some writers admit that if they had written the obituary of a big person beforehand, they would sometimes realize that they were waiting for that person to die. The Los Angeles Times reporter who wrote the obituary for Elizabeth Taylor said that she had "almost" died many times in 12 years, and I did feel a special connection with her, so I was really sad when it really came in handy.
02
Secretary of State and garbage workers, who do you choose?
Obituaries often have a separate column on the websites of major British and American newspapers, click to enter, and the heads of well-known or unknown deceased people will come into view. Not the solemnity you think, the most vivid moments of their lives are frozen here, and the sound is like a sound.
In the obituary board, death becomes an equal matter. Because obituarys are arranged by date, the news of an ordinary person's death is often adjacent to a "big man." American obituary author Marilyn Johnson describes her duties this way: Good people continue to die, and the obituary author's job is to guide them out of the scene while preserving their dignity. Each obituary is like the fingerprints of a deceased person, showing the difference in that person. Every obituary seems to say that there is one less special person in the world, and such a person will never be seen again. When a different person dies, obituary makes the world aware of its loss as quickly as possible.
Marilyn Johnson is the author of "Obituary First, Then Heaven", published in China in 2007, and the book reveals many interesting stories about obituary.
For example, on July 4, 1826, the second and third presidents of the United States, John Adams, and Thomas Jefferson died on the same day, exactly 50 years after they signed the Declaration of Independence. The New York American newspaper wrote: In their lives, they cherish nothing more than freedom, and freedom is finally revealed to the world by them. On the occasion of the fiftieth anniversary of the arrival of freedom, two patriots who "went down in history" passed away in a long way.
The Guardian's obituary categorizes the deceased by field, and you'll find out who left on the same day in a certain field
The book also lists many obituaries of unknown little people, which are impressive:
A bereaved owner, who can't see the hood of the car that can't be opened in his life, as soon as he sees it, he has to go over to see what is wrong with the car, even if he doesn't know the owner at all; a widow, when he doesn't like to watch TV, people stand in front of him, as long as he watches TV, he doesn't care about anything, it doesn't matter if the house is on fire.
The owner of a shop in Manhattan, who is good at choosing the right size bra for women, only needs a glance most of the time, and never needs to measure it with a soft ruler. She died at the age of ninety-four and had a bra size of 34B.
A farmer who has bred 367 kinds of potatoes, when someone calls to order, he has to talk to the other party to see if the other party is worthy of buying his potatoes. As if he were going to entrust his children to them, he had to take a character test first. He felt that if people could know what quality was from a small potato, they could generalize and recognize the quality of everything in the world.
Civilianization was a revolution reported in the Anglo-American newspapers and newspapers, beginning in the 1980s. The author of the Philadelphia Daily News obituary, Jim Nicholson, became a pioneer of "ordinary people's obituary", and his pen was written for the local people of Philadelphia, turning ordinary people's obituary into a unique literary genre. Imitators soon sprung up across the country.
The famous obituary forum alt.obituaries, where people post obituaries
Previously, the Obituary News Department was like a cold palace, and the obituary author was called a "full-time mourner" in the newspaper, and only journalists who could not do it were assigned here. Nicholson changed the status of obituary writers. In the obituary circle, the younger generations called him "the father of all of us."
In 1987, the American Newspaper Editors Association awarded Nicholson a Distinguished Writing Award for his "richly detailed, colorful obituary for the common man of Philadelphia." This is the first time that the Newspaper Editors Association has awarded an obituary author. More than 20 years later, the Professional Obituary Writers Association (SPOW) awarded him a Lifetime Achievement Award.
Nicholson has many mantras, such as: I am the one who fights for their rights in the newspaper, fights for their pages, fights for their dignity. For example: You can't lie on the old credit book and eat the old book, because the next family doesn't care about what you wrote before, they just want to know, will you do your best for their loved ones?
Another example: the death of a big man has nothing to do with me, that is the content of the city news page. If you were on vacation, would you worry about the secretary of state or the person who collected the garbage for you? The latter, of course.
In February 2019, the "father of ordinary people's obituary" put his pen down forever. The Washington Post's obituary for him ends with that mantra: If you go on vacation, will you worry about the secretary of state or the person who collects the garbage for you? The latter, of course.
Worldwide, the most sensational "ordinary people's obituary" of recent years was the "Obituary of a Thousand People" that the New York Times put on its front page in May 2020, listing the names of 1,000 people who died from the COVID-19 pandemic, each suffixed with a phrase that condensed their lives:
"Marion Kruger, 85, Kirkland, Washington, grandmother who likes to laugh..."
"Romy Cohen, 91, New York, once saved 56 Jewish families from the Gestapo..."
"Julian Angelo Maya, 51, Chicago, a man who turns his life into a party..."
"Kristen McLaughlin, 86, Chicago, talks, never runs out of words..."
"Ronnie Estes, 73, Stevensville, Maryland, always wants to be close to the sea..."
Obituary is not about death, it's about life. This is the consensus of obituary journalists. Unfortunately, it's easy for them to fall in love with their subjects, but they'll never get a chance to meet them.
03
Obituary's "Business"
In addition to the pursuit of "egalitarianism", another important reason why major newspapers in britain and the United States attach importance to the obituary page is that obituary can bring benefits to newspapers. There are two ways:
First, as a "news" story written for free by obituary journalists, it is very popular with readers and has become an important means for major newspapers to compete for readers and increase circulation.
Second, in addition to the free Obituaries, major newspapers also offer paid "Death Notice" services, which are classifieds. For example, some of the deceased information that appeared in the New York Times's "Obituary of a Thousand People" was found by the editor from the Death Notice, which was published at the expense of the deceased's family.
Some part-time obituary writers also post messages on their personal pages, offering fee-based obituary writing services for the families of the deceased, typically for a few hundred dollars.
"Death notices" are just one of the types of newspaper classifieds. Newspapers have birth, marriage and death (BMD) pages that serve as a channel for public information and charge advertising fees. When Murdoch married in 2016 and married his fourth wife, he placed the "advertisement" on the "Birth, Marriage and Obituary" section of the Times newspaper he owned.
Domestically, newspapers have always had paid "death notices". A journalist recorded the obituary: In the early summer of 1993, after my father's death, no obituary was issued, and I only posted a blank piece of paper on the wall in front of the market town's house, with black writing about the relevant content and advertising it immediately. After returning to Wenzhou, I actually sent more than thirty words in the slit of the Wenzhou Evening News, thanking a number of caring people in a decent way, with a section the size of an eight-cent stamp.
Nowadays, on a small program called "Posting", you can find different types of newspaper revelation services, obituary is one of them, and the price of each newspaper varies. These revelations will appear in the middle slits and corners of the newspaper, like inconspicuous waves in the torrent of the times.
Domestic journalism has been relatively slow to explore another category: obituary reporting.
As early as the 1980s, Guangming Daily stipulated that "the death of a person with a deputy senior title or above can be reported". In the official press, obituary reports are aimed at politicians and celebrities, and there are strict requirements for the number, location, and size of their reports.
Studies have shown that in 2003, the "Nostalgia" column launched by Chutian Metropolis Daily created a precedent for the city newspaper to publish the obituary of ordinary people. The editorial board of Chutian Metropolis Daily recorded this past: in 2003 and 2004, we launched the "Remembrance" column on the social news section of Chutian Metropolis Daily on the Qingming Festival, trying to make readers gradually accept this new variety of news reports through sincerity and goodwill. We named the obituary column "Remembrance", which embodies the "soft landing".
In March 2005, the Beijing News launched the "Deceased" edition, which was considered to be the first media in mainland China to regularly do full-page obituary reports. Subsequently, the obituary report ushered in a climax in the domestic local metropolitan newspaper. Southern People Weekly and Caixin magazines have also launched obituary columns.
However, in view of the taboo of "death" in Chinese culture, most media still use the euphemistic column name "Deceased" instead of "obituary".
The author of "First Obituary, Then Heaven" says at the end of the book: "The obituary shows the respect for the deceased, the remembrance of the life that once flashed and then passed away, and at the same time, it is also a challenge, a fist waved at God or the stars.
In 2018, the New York Times launched the "Overlooked" column, which began to reissue the obituary of the female deceased that the newspaper had omitted due to "sexism" in the past to correct historical errors.
Some obituary may be late, but it should not be absent.
Resources:
[1] Obituary, Nova Press
[2] Documentary Obit
[3] Obituary First, Heaven Later, Nova Press
[4] "Write a Life in Two Pages" Source: Reading Library
[5] Behind the obituary of a thousand people, there are 100,000 once living lives 丨 Gu Yu Project"
[6] "Obituary First, Heaven Later: A Long and Warm Obituary Culture of Foreign Media" Source: Interface
[7] "Research on Obituary in Mainland Newspapers" By Yu Yong
[8] As the death toll rises, obituary writers are struggling to keep up，Wired
[9] Obituary writers reveal the surprising things they learn by writing about the dead，Insider
[10] Isabelle Fraser：An Interview with Ann Wroe, Obituaries Writer for The Economist
Image from the web
The author of this article | Peng Peng is the editor-in-chief | Wang Tao
Wang Shuqi, consultant | Chen Runjiang, editor|