Andrew Beaujon
Apr. 29, 2013
8:36 am
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Julie Moos
Feb. 1, 2013
3:19 pm
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Andrew Beaujon
Jan. 17, 2013
2:35 pm
The Associated Press
Pauline Friedman Phillips died Wednesday "after a long battle with Alzheimer's disease," Steve Karnowski writes. Under the pen name Abigail Van Buren, she wrote a very popular advice column until 1987, when she handed the column to her daughter, Jeanne Phillips.
For years Pauline Phillips competed with her twin sister, Esther Friedman Lederer, who wrote as Ann Landers. Esther's daughter is advice columnist Margo Howard.
"I'm saddened to hear about the death Pauline Phillips," advice columnist Dan Savage tells Poynter in an email.
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Andrew Beaujon
Dec. 13, 2012
8:16 am
Mother Jones |
CJR
2012 was a great year for men to die. "
Big papers' lists of significant deaths in 2012 overwhelmingly feature men," Dana Liebelson writes in Mother Jones.
The Washington Post put 18 women and 48 men on its list. On the other side of the country, the Los Angeles Times listed 36 women and 114 men. And lest you think this is some kind of freak 2012 phenomenon, the New York Times has consistently listed many more men than women over the last five years.
Obituaries are a "rearview mirror," New York Times obituaries editor Bill McDonald tells Liebelson. "The people we write about largely shaped the world of the 1950s, '60s and, increasingly, the '70s, and those movers and shakers were—no surprise—predominantly white men."
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Mallary Jean Tenore
Aug. 17, 2012
5:30 am
When people have been traumatized, they’re often reluctant to talk to the media. There are ways of getting them to open up, though, and of showing them the value in sharing their story.
I talked with five journalists who have … Read more
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Kelly McBride
July 24, 2012
5:02 pm
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Steve Myers
May 14, 2012
11:30 am
The Charlotte Observer
Gerry Hostetler
wrote close to 2,500 obituary columns for The Charlotte Observer; on Sunday the newspaper published her last, about her own life. She was 76. Hostetler started working in the Observer's newsroom as a part-time obit clerk in 1978, and in 1991 she pitched the newspaper on an obituary column, "It's a Matter of Life." In her last column she explains (in third-person) her thinking:
"I would do an occasional obit-news story," Gerry said, "and they became quite popular. That prompted me to envision a column with more information and above all – more warmth."
She describes a life of hard work, including 20 years working two jobs. She also offers a bit of advice for journalists doing this work:
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Steve Myers
Apr. 26, 2012
1:59 pm
The Ponca City News
Remember
Michael "Flathead" Blanchard, who "died as a result of being stubborn, refusing to follow doctors’ orders and raising hell for more than six decades"? You know, the one whose paid obit said that he "enjoyed booze, guns, cars and younger women until the day he died."
Wherever Blanchard is now, he has a friend in Joshua Micheal McMahan,
whose obituary in The Ponca City News seems to have been inspired by Blanchard's:
He was loved, hated, praised, and cursed by relatives and friends alike. He ultimately passed as a result of being stubborn, refusing to follow doctors’ (or anyone else for that matters) orders, and raising hell for a little more than three decades. He lived life on his own terms.
Like Blanchard, McMahan's friends are holding an adult-oriented remembrance service. Children can come, as long they don't mind booze and cursing. In a nice twist, guests are told, "If you have a special memory or maybe just want to irritate Josh for all eternity, please bring a magnet or sticker to attach to his casket for evermore."
Thanks to J. Freedom du Lac for pointing this out.
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Steve Myers
Apr. 13, 2012
11:23 am
The Denver Post
The paid obituary for Michael "Flathead" Blanchard reads:
Weary of reading obituaries noting someone's courageous battle with death, Mike wanted it known that he died as a result of being stubborn, refusing to follow doctors' orders and raising hell for more than six decades. He enjoyed booze, guns, cars and younger women until the day he died. ...
So many of his childhood friends that weren't killed in Vietnam went on to become criminals, prostitutes and/or Democrats. He asks that you stop by and re-tell the stories he can no longer tell. As the Celebration will contain Adult material we respectfully ask that no children under 18 attend.
The Denver Post called it "one of the most interesting obituaries" the paper has ever published and used it as an opportunity to ask people on Facebook, "When it's time, do you want your friends and family to grieve, or laugh?"
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Roy Peter Clark
Sep. 7, 2011
6:00 am
To figure out how short writing helps us honor and remember, think about the word “enshrine.”
It often begins with a simple list of the dead, like the 3,000 names of men, women and children enshrined on the bronze parapets … Read more
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