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Obituaries

Obits for a paper’s long-time staffer underline new approaches to media competition and collaboration

Tom Condon wrote for the Hartford Courant for 45 years. Another news organization wrote his obit.

October 24, 2024

Opinion | AI butchered a former NBA player’s obit. Could it still have a use?

Those who have lost someone often face a thick fog of grief and a heavy load of end-of-life arrangements. AI could help them draft a basic obit.

September 15, 2023

Why one writer wrote Silvio Berlusconi’s obit for both The New York Times and Washington Post

Jason Horowitz's work appeared in both publications last week when media mogul and former Prime Minister of Italy Silvio Berlusconi died.

June 20, 2023

Opinion | Coverage of Jim Brown’s death reveals news outlets’ commitment to telling the whole story — the good, the bad and the ugly

The Cleveland Browns running back did a lot of good. He also faced terrible accusations. Journalists covered it. All of it, even in death.

May 22, 2023

An obit lover took her passion, and dead people’s life lessons, to TikTok

Tips From Dead People gets at the stories between the lines

March 22, 2023

Some news organizations have hundreds of obituaries ready to publish

Here's how they decide whose obit to prewrite and when they decide to update them.

September 26, 2022

Obituaries are important, worth rethinking and reviving

Here’s what we discovered from 2.5 years of work, a fellowship and a newsletter

November 18, 2021

How Jim Sheeler took the news ‘to a place where grief could unfold in depth’

The former Rocky Mountain News Pulitzer Prize winner died last week. He was 53.

September 23, 2021

Turns out there’s a few things about obituaries that need rethinking

How do you make changes to something that's bringing in money?

November 10, 2020

Lessons from a viral obituary

Understanding the answers will help us learn if feature obituaries can drive readership and build revenue through subscriptions

September 16, 2020

Can obituaries help save local news?

The co-founder of Report for America thinks so.

September 1, 2020

How will we remember the people we’ve lost to the coronavirus?

One way: Local newsrooms are collecting obituaries of the people they've lost in their communities

August 6, 2020

Local obits still matter and other lessons from covering the dead for digital

A fellowship project takes on new meaning in a pandemic

August 5, 2020

How The Birmingham News broke and told the story of Harper Lee’s death

Since coming to AL.com and The Birmingham News about a year ago, statewide investigative reporter…

February 23, 2016

On the ethics of family obit writing

When I finished the first draft of Uncle Bob’s obit last week, I shared it…

November 3, 2015

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