THE ART & CRAFT OF THE OBITUARY

American Historical Association Annual Meeting Washington D.C., January 2014 • THE NORMAN LEAR CENTER THE ART AND CRAFT OF THE OBITUARY •

THE NORMAN LEAR CENTER

The Norman Lear Center is a nonpartisan research and public policy center that studies the social, political, economic and cultural impact of entertainment on the world. The Lear Center translates its findings into action through testimony, journalism, strategic research and innovative public outreach campaigns. On campus, from its base in the USC Annenberg School for Communication & Journalism, the Lear Center builds bridges between schools and disciplines whose faculty study aspects of entertainment, media and culture. Beyond campus, it bridges the gap between the entertainment industry and academia, and between them and the public. Through scholarship and research; through its conferences, public events and publications; and in its attempts to illuminate and repair the world, the Lear Center works to be at the forefront of discussion and practice in the field.

For more information, please visit: www.learcenter.org.

HISTORIANS, JOURNALISTS & THE CHALLENGES OF GETTING IT RIGHT

Historians, Journalists and the Challenges of Getting It Right is a partnership of the Lear Center, USC Annenberg’s Center for Communication Leadership & Policy and the American Historical Association”s National History Center. It begins with the premise that both professions, historians and journalists, are in the business of finding and assessing evidence; of analyzing events; and of narrating events. Both are storytellers. Both could enhance their work by learning from each other, by establishing networks that connect them, by sharing expertise and by sharing practical knowledge about media and methods.

In order to explore what these professions have in common and where they differ, to begin to understand what each of these professions mean by “getting it right,” to examine the impact of journalism on history and of history on journalism, the project launched in 2012 at the American Historical Association annual meeting with four case studies: American Biography and the Cold War; Publishing in the American Century; Interpreting the Arab Spring; American Intervention. For more information on the project, please visit: www.learcenter.org/html/projects/?cm=gettingitright

This transcript has been edited and condensed. A video of this event can be viewed online at http://vimeo.com/83764962.

This transcript is licensed under the Creative Commons Share Alike, Attribution License.

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ABOUT THE PANELISTS

JANICE HUME teaches magazine writing, management, and media history ADAM BERNSTEIN has spent his career putting the “post” in Washington at Grady College at the University of Georgia. Her research concerns Post, first as an obituary writer and then as editor. The American Society American journalism history, public memory, and media coverage of death. of Newspaper Editors recognized Bernstein’s ability to exhume “the small For her book Obituaries in American Culture (Jackson: University Press details and anecdotes that get at the essence of the person” and to write of Mississippi, 2000), she read more than 8,000 obituaries published in stories that are “complex yet stylish.” He was also featured in Marilyn newspapers in New York City, New Orleans, Baltimore, Chicago and San Johnson’s acclaimed book about the obit writing craft, The Dead Beat. Francisco, along with Niles’ Weekly Register and The National Intelligencer Bernstein, a graduate of Columbia University’s journalism school, wrote the to show what they reveal about changing American values. Dr. Hume’s introduction to the 2004 Naval Institute Press reprint of “You’re Stepping second book Journalism and a Culture of Grief (Routledge, 2008) was on My Cloak and Dagger,” Roger Hall’s best-selling comic memoir of his co-authored with Dr. Carolyn Kitch of Temple University and considers the social construction wartime experiences in the Office of Strategic Services. He gets no royalties but recommends the of death in American media. She has also published research in a number of academic journals, book anyway. including Journalism and Mass Communication Quarterly, Journalism History, American Journalism and Journal of Popular Culture. MARTY KAPLAN is the Lear Center founding director, a former associate ADAM CLYMER joined The New York Times in 1977 to cover Congress and dean of the USC Annenberg School, and holds the Norman Lear Chair moved on to become the national political correspondent in 1979. In 1983 he in Entertainment, Media and Society. A summa cum laude graduate of came to New York as polling editor, occasionally writing about polls. In 1988 Harvard in molecular biology, a Marshall Scholar in English at Cambridge he was also the paper’s first political editor, and in 1990 he served as senior University, and a Stanford PhD in modern thought and literature, he was editor for weekends, managing the newsroom on Saturdays and Sundays. Vice President Walter Mondale’s chief speechwriter and deputy presidential He returned to Washington in 1991 as chief Congressional Correspondent, campaign manager. He has been a Disney Studios vice president of motion and won the 1993 Everett McKinley Dirksen Award for Distinguished picture production, a film and television writer and producer, a radio host, Congressional Coverage. From 1997 to 1999 he was the newspaper’s print columnist and blogger. Washington Editor, and became Washington Correspondent in 1999. He covered a variety of subjects in that role, including Congress, politics, secrecy and privacy. The American Political Science Association honored him in 2003 with its Carey McWilliams Awards for “major journalistic contributions to an understanding of politics.” He is the author of two books, Drawing the Line at the Big Ditch: The Panama Canal Treaties and the Rise of the Right” (University Press of Kansas, 2008) and Edward M. Kennedy: A Biography (William Morrow, 1999). He is a co-author of The Swing Voter in American Politics (Brookings Institution Press, 2008) and Reagan: The Man, The President (Macmillan, 1981). He edited The New York Times Year in Review 1986 (Times Books, 1987).

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done by Time Magazine.

In New Orleans, we had a panel about the death and life of great American newspapers and also about the journalism THE ART AND CRAFT OF THE OBITUARY and history of the rise of the Third Reich.

And here, we’re going to use obituaries as a lens into those Marty Kaplan: We’re going to talk today about “The Art and issues about historians and journalists. We’ll also be look- Craft of the Obituary,” and my name is Marty Kaplan. I am ing at obituaries because they are fascinating in and of the Director of the Norman Lear Center at the University of themselves, and I want to declare at the outset that I am Southern California’s Annenberg School for Communication definitely a fanboy. and Journalism. Janice Hume is a professor of journalism at the University And speaking of Norman Lear, he is 91. He is extremely ac- of Georgia’s Grady College of Journalism and Mass Media. tive. He has lots of television projects, among other things, She’s the chair of the Department of Journalism. Her doc- and my favorite and most salient of those projects is a com- torate is from the University of Missouri. Janice read 8,000 edy set in an assisted living facility. The title of the comedy obituaries from the early part of American history and lived is “Guess Who Died?”, which I rather like. to tell the tale in a book called Obituaries in American Cul- ture, and she’s also the co-author of another book, Journal- I’m going to stipulate that no one is here in the room who ism in a Culture of Grief. What we’re wants to know how they can get an obituary in The New York trying to Times or The Washington Post; their interest is purely aca- Adam Bernstein is starting his 16th year writing obituaries demic, as it were. at The Washington Post, the past four of them as obituaries do over the editor. His degrees are from the University of Virginia and sessions is to This is the third year of a project called: Getting It Right — the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism. In understand Historians, Journalists, and the Challenges of Getting It a book I highly recommended called The Dead Beat: Lost between Right. Souls, Lucky Stiffs, and the Perverse Pleasures of Obituar- ies, by Marilyn Johnson, Adam is described as “the Kid,” historians and What we’re trying to do over the sessions is to understand which he probably will have to wear for his career. journalists what are the commonalities and what are the differenc- what are the es between historians and journalists. How do they treat I first met Adam Clymer when I was working not on the press knowledge? How do they treat evidence? What constitutes a side but on the political side of the 1980 presidential cam- commonalities fact? What’s accuracy? What’s different about the way they paign. His career has been at The New York Times, where his and what approach storytelling? And how can those two professions titles have included national political correspondent, politi- are the be helpful to one another? cal editor, assistant Washington editor in charge of cover- differences. age of Congress, chief Washington correspondent, from In Chicago at the American Historical Association a couple which he retired in 2003. He is now writing obituaries from Marty Kaplan of years ago, we approached that by looking at Henry Luce time to time. He is a Harvard graduate, was the president of and Time Magazine and histories of the 20th century not

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the Harvard Crimson, and wrote two books, Edward M. Ken- virtues. There is in the life of a noble, independent and hon- nedy: A Biography and Drawing the Line at the Big Ditch: est man something so worthy of imitation, something that [Obituaries] The Panama Canal Treaties and the Rise of the Right. so strongly commends itself to the approbation of a virtu- ous mind that his name should not be left in oblivion nor are, it has been Please join me in welcoming our panelists. his influence be lost. And while we may not speak of him in said, the most (Applause) terms of adulation and undeserved acumen, we may pre- creative writing serve the recollection of those virtues which made him an to be found in We will have no formal presentations and this will be a free- ornament to society.” journalism. wheeling discussion. We’ll be going from topic to topic. The Isn’t that lovely? topic areas that we intend to cover — and it is a little hard to Marty Kaplan disentangle them — are, first, who gets an obituary, who’s Marty Kaplan: Great. Good scene setter. Thank you. worthy of an obituary, who’s not, and says who? Adam? Well, by contrast, perhaps? Second, how are obits written? They are, it has been said, the most creative writing to be found in journalism. So how Adam Bernstein: I’ll do my best. First of all, thank you for is it that one goes about writing obituaries? having me, and I wanted to say that I greatly appreciated you taking the pains to note in front of a panel on obituaries And then how do obituaries construct history, frame history, that Norman Lear is extremely active at 91. distort history? Does it matter really who gets an obituary or what it says? How do we use them, all the various we’s that The obit I’m choosing is relevant because it is the one that that might entail? changed my life. It is one that appeared in The New York Times, 1996. It was the first story that showed me that obit- To start, I asked each of our panelists, to get us into the uaries — that journalism as a whole and specifically obitu- mood of things, to choose a piece of an obituary to read to aries — could be a hell of a lot of fun. us. And since Janice covers historic obituaries, I suspect this is not one that she’s written, but tell us what you’re go- “Harold C. Fox, the Chicago clothier and sometime big-band ing to read. trumpeter who claimed credit for creating and naming the zoot suit with the reet pleat, the reave sleeve, the ripe stripe, Janice Hume: It is not one that I’ve written. Thank you very the stuff cuff and the drape shape that was the stage rage much. during the boogie-woogie rhyme time of the early 1940’s, This is an excerpt, a small excerpt, from an obituary for Wil- died at his home in Siesta Key, Florida. He was 86. liam Custis, a Virginian who died in 1838 at 50 years old. “From the wide, padded shoulders and broad lapels of the And this excerpt sums up why I was interested in studying long, billowing jacket to the ballooning high-waisted pants obituaries historically. with the tourniquet-tight pegged cuffs and the inevitable His obituary read: “In paying a tribute to one who has gone long, looping watch chain, the zoot suit was an exaggerat- to the dead, it is due to his memory publicly to record his ed fashion fad that not so much defined as defied an era of wartime conformity.”

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Marty Kaplan: And that was written by Robert McG Thom- “The result adorns almost every product of contemporary as? Is that right? life, including groceries, wayward luggage and, if you are a traditionalist, the newspaper you are holding. Adam Bernstein: That’s correct. “The man on the beach that day was a mechanical-engineer- Marty Kaplan: And if I read correctly, you came across it in-training named N. Joseph Woodland. With that transfor- because your mother sent it to you? mative stroke of his fingers — yielding a set of literal lines Adam Bernstein: We have an unusual family. in the sand — Mr. Woodland, who died on Sunday at 91, conceived the modern bar code.” Marty Kaplan: Just wanted to fact-check that. Now, frequently, Margalit’s pieces go further than that be- Adam Bernstein: I was working in California at a small fore you get the name of the deceased because she’s telling newspaper, and I was in college at the time, and it came the yarn. with the usual care package of material. I ate all the cookies and then I noticed the it. I said, “Wow, this is great.” And so The other one is one of my own. I don’t think I’ve ever begun I immediately volunteered to write an obituary at the news- an obit without the name of the deceased coming first, and paper, and everybody said, “Why?” And I said, “Because I here’s one I liked. thought it would be a lot of fun.” “Robert C. Byrd served 51 years in the United States Senate, I remember it was in Bakersfield, California, and I wrote longer than anyone else in history, and with his six years in about an oil field worker named “White Shoes Boden,” and the House of Representatives, he was the longest-serving I went out and immediately got as many details as I could member of Congress. But it was how he used that record about his many divorces and his favorite cigarettes, and I tenure that made him a pillar of Capitol Hill — fighting, tried to model it on this. I failed miserably, but it gave me a often with florid words, for the primacy of the legislative life-long interest in trying to match the tone and tempo of branch in government and building, always with canny po- how Robert McG Thomas approached his obituaries. litical skills, a modern West Virginia with vast amounts of federal money.” Marty Kaplan: Adam Clymer, do you have something to read? Marty Kaplan: Great, thank you.

Adam Clymer: Yes, actually, I’d like to read a couple para- Clearly, by contrast, we have heard how obituaries have graphs of two of them because they’re very different. changed. And reading Janice’s book, 8,000 obituaries later, there was one chart in it that fascinated me, and I’m just go- This is by the obit writer I most enjoy reading from The ing to ask you the general question of how have obituaries Times, Margalit Fox. changed through time, focusing in your period.

“It was born on a beach six decades ago, the product of The chart is a list of what qualities are esteemed in The New a pressing need, an intellectual spark and the sweep of a York Times, the New Orleans Picayune, and the Baltimore young man’s fingers through the sand. Sun, and this is a way of asking who gets an obituary, who is

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worth an obituary. I went back to times in American history when our society was becoming more inclusive, and that was at times when The quality most at the top of the list is that the deceased we people were getting the right to vote. And I looked at is highly esteemed, highly esteemed, or publicly esteemed. how the things we value about the individual American life And for women, at the top of the list for those three papers changed before and after those times. are: Christian, Christian, and Christian. And one of the most important or one of the most interest- Janice Hume: Yes. Men and women have historically been ing changes that I found was that in the 19th century, people remembered quite differently, and this is an important thing were remembered for attributes of character, for public es- for us to consider. We think of an obituary as a news story. teem, for being gentle, for being hospitable. It is a news story about a death. But, really, it is a little sum- mation of what we think is important to remember about a In the early part of the 20th century, people were remem- life. It represents a cultural value. bered for how much wealth they had accumulated, for the positions they held. It was really about wealth and business. So my idea was as our cultural values change, so, too, should And in the 19th century, it was about attributes of character. We think of an what we value, what we read in an obituary change. And And that was one of the major findings in the book. so in the 1800s, men were remembered for very different obituary as a qualities than women, and not everybody got an obituary. Marty Kaplan: Alden Whitman, who was the chief obituary news story. It Not everybody’s life was worthy of memory. And in a society writer and editor for The New York Times in his The Obitu- is a news story that is egalitarian, that’s an important thing for us to think. ary Book — which came out in 1971 — in his introduction, about a death. The individual citizen’s obituary is an important reflection of talking about who gets an obituary, he writes: “The poor, what we value in this country. those who work in an occupation not high on the prevailing But, really, it is a scale of social values or who belonged to one of the lesser little summation So there’s an obituary for Sarah English, and this is very typi- regarded ethnic groups or who have never previously been of what we think cal of a woman’s obituary. This is in 1818. in the news for good or ill are unlikely to make it in in death.” is important to “Mrs. English was as intelligent as she was good. Not at all And when Gay Talese interviewed him when that book came remember about ambitious of worldly shows, she chose to be useful rather out, Talese summarized his argument by saying, “Women a life. than gay. Her domestic concerns were managed with the and Negroes hardly ever seemed to die.” most admirable economy, exhibiting at the same degree of Janice Hume comfort and neatness not to be surpassed.” So, Adam Bernstein, who gets an obituary?

I tell my students if they write that about me in my obituary, Adam Bernstein: The Washington Post has a fairly egalitar- I will come back and haunt them. That is not how women are ian policy about it right now. We write about anybody who remembered today. lived a long time in the Washington area.

But this idea of inclusion, because to me the most impor- It is a little bit problematic dealing with families — writing tant ethical issue in an obituary page is getting the facts about people who are not in the news a lot because it is very right, and we talk about that. It is also this idea of inclusion. difficult to verify the information.

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What happened recently was a widow of a gentleman called I think our future is online for obituaries. This is changing in and was giving the reporter a lot of biographical details. us, how we think right now. The impact of online reader- He served in the Navy, did this, that, and the other. The re- ship is tremendous for obituaries. Very few read the com- porter managed to find some reference somewhere on the munity obituaries, and there’s an immediate need to fill the Internet to this man’s affiliation with a Coast Guard alumni void whenever a second or third-tier celebrity dies. And the organization and called back the widow and said, “Did you newsroom goes up in arms whenever we don’t have some- mean the Coast Guard?” She goes, “Oh, yeah, it had some- thing on a starlet or somebody who creates huge spikes in thing to do with ships.” I’m serious. traffic.

And so when you’re not talking about more eulogistic obitu- Marty Kaplan: And do those people, in principle, get a print aries that are long on wind and low on fact, there is some- edition obituary if they are famous or notorious enough? times a bit of a problem in trusting all the information you can put in. Adam Bernstein: Yes, for sure.

Marty Kaplan: Now, that’s not a genteel way of apologizing Marty Kaplan: Adam Clymer, who gets an obituary? Who is for being establishment focused, is it? worth an obituary?

Adam Bernstein: To do the little obits or do the smaller—? Adam Clymer: Fortunately, I don’t have to decide that. I’m just a field man there. Marty Kaplan: Yes, the degree to which you do fewer of those little obits and more coverage of the establishment, But prominent people do decide. The Times does not do or is that a not fair thing? anything like as thorough a job of running relatively short obituaries about local people. In fact, it used to do it much Adam Bernstein: No, no, no. I don’t think that’s right. The more than it does now. priority of The Post was always to cover the community, and traditionally, the emphasis has been on the community You’ll probably see on most days two or three obituaries, of obituaries. people you’re as likely to have heard of in Washington as you are in New York. They have about 1,500 advance obituaries, And historically, the paper has written about more promi- some of them going back to at least into the early ‘80s and nent people, depending on the whim of the editor. One of written on hard copy and haven’t been punched in because, my former editors was a real Anglophile, so you’d have a lot well, maybe by the time they pass, it won’t matter to anyone of local Army colonels and GSA employees and then sud- anymore. denly a Great British historian or an eccentric earl or some- thing like that. I asked if I could describe what they had in advance, and I was given a New York Times reply, “Well, we consider that An editor before that was a Marine Corps veteran of the proprietary information.” But since before I started writing Korean War, and so you’d have a lot of Army colonels and obits, I knew that they always had one about presidents and church volunteers and GSA employees, and then suddenly ex-presidents ready. And beyond that, public officials cer- some brilliant Army commander, Marine Corps commander. tainly, but oddly enough, people liked the bar code man,

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and that takes more invention and brings more amusement, will be the length of the piece. I think, than Robert Byrd. Here’s an appreciation of who Robert Byrd was, but if anyone really cared, they knew he Marty Kaplan: Janice, is there any distortion or bias toward was dead. the celebrated or the notorious in the history you’ve done?

Adam Bernstein: I think that approach makes a paper a lot Janice Hume: Yes. When people are newsworthy, there’s more vital and interesting to readers as well. One of the rea- more copy, and they’re remembered in different ways. sons why it is increasingly more difficult to cover the com- My interest has always been in studying not the notorious munity the way we have is that the staffing has been cut a but the average person’s obituary. But even through those lot. So where we used to have five, it is now two, and try- 8,000 obits, the longest one was for Mary Baker Eddy, and ing to fulfill the community obligation and keep up with the it was pages and pages and pages. So certainly how much most fascinating people that you can put in the newspaper is written about someone and the placement, certainly, is increasingly difficult. there’s a bias.

It is a very difficult balance that we try and keep, and we Marty Kaplan: Many bereaved families, it is my impression, can’t do everybody in the middle. It is people you haven’t are surprised when they discover that the way to get a death heard of who made a tremendous contribution, people who notice is to pay for it. They are surprised that it is advertis- discovered, I think, vitamin A and vitamin C, I remember, ing and that those are the only places in which the memorial on the same day. The New York Times has a great whimsical service and charities and so on are listed. Has that always way of doing it. I think on the same day or at least within two been the case? days of each other, they had the discoverer of vitamin A and Adam Bernstein: I think so. I wish I got a cut of every adver- the discoverer of vitamin C, and it is fun to see. And it is fun tisement I’ve sold by sending people to the department that as a reader to see that, as well. they really wanted.

Marty Kaplan: Richard Pearson, the great Washington Post There’s a great confusion because obituary lovers are a obituaries editor, when asked who gets obituaries, said, small but elite group of people with refined tastes, and they “Well, God is my assignment editor.” And I’m just wonder- know that obituaries can be all that Adam was describing, ing, is the market also an assignment editor? The fact that Janice was describing. certain people make for compelling copy or that they’re no- torious, does that force some of the decisions? Most people’s interactions with obituaries, I think and I fear, are mostly when a loved one has died, and they view people Adam Clymer: I think that somebody is good copy, like the who write obituaries with a little, I guess — it has a ghoulish bar code man, is certainly an invitation, but I haven’t yet tint to it to them. They don’t understand what we do; it is detected at The Times — but I’m sure it will come at some just writing a news story. And so when they call us, it is often point — this problem about traffic on the Web. I don’t see the first encounter they have with a newspaper, and they’re a greater attention to people I might not have cared much dealing with a great deal of sadness in their life. They’re not about, but then on the other hand, they’ve always cared a sure what to do, and so we try and explain the difference little bit about starlets. So stars and starlets, the difference between what we do, the news story. They always want to www.learcenter.org 9 • THE NORMAN LEAR CENTER THE ART AND CRAFT OF THE OBITUARY •

include something eulogistic in the piece and we say, “No, Janice Hume: And they were brilliant. no, we really can’t do that. What you’re looking for is a paid death notice,” and they quickly learn the difference. Marty Kaplan: And you did a study of them?

But I think there’s a huge misunderstanding about what Janice Hume: I did a study of them and looked at how they news obituaries are and what their intent is, and it is an as- represented those everyday values, the families, the con- sessment of a life. It is not just the biographical summary. nections with children, the high energy because most of the people who died were young. So when I did the 8,000 obitu- Adam Clymer: There are papers that will run a news story aries, these people were supposed to be dead, they died in as an obituary only if you’ve bought an ad. the 1800s. They would’ve been dead anyway. And when I did the study of the “Portraits of Grief,” I had to work with Adam Bernstein: Really? Kleenex. I cried the whole way through. They were so beau- Janice Hume: And I found evidence of paid obituaries back tiful and important. to the 1830s, so it is not new. Adam Clymer: In fact, you talked about the terms used in Marty Kaplan: Wow. I don’t know whether The New York the early 1800s. Those terms would very rarely get into an obit Adam or I wrote today unless we were quoting the pres- Times pioneered it, but it certainly was celebrated for it, ..there’s a huge was the “Portraits of Grief” after 9/11. Can you describe ident or something. misunderstand- that, Adam? Adam Bernstein: Unless it is about our bosses. ing about what Adam Clymer: After 9/11, people were putting posters up Adam Clymer: And those short ones were full of that. news obituar- all around, “Have you seen this person?” because people didn’t know what had become of a lot of people. One of the Janice Hume: Oh, they were really beautiful. ies are and what editors saw those and decided that we wanted to do some- their intent is, thing. We can’t do full-fledged obits on 3,000 people, but Marty Kaplan: I’m going to move on but not abandon this and it is an as- topic of who gets obituaries to turn more to something we can do 100 or 150 words about everyone whose family sessment of a wants us to. Some didn’t; most did. that we’ve mentioned a bit, which is that how are obituar- ies written? So you mentioned advance obituaries and The life. It is not just I was working in Washington, but I did a few of them and Times has something like 1,500? the biographical it was very satisfying because, by and large, they were de- summary. lighted to know that The New York Times was interested. Adam Clymer: Yes. Adam Bernstein It was something they hadn’t expected because so and so Marty Kaplan: Adam, what’s the story at The Post on ad- wouldn’t possibly have made the cut. It would’ve been hard vance obituaries? to make the cut in The Post if they’d been one of the thou- sands of people who died in this area. Very ordinary lives. Adam Bernstein: How many do we have? 100, 150 words. That was very challenging, rewarding, and it got a Pulitzer. Marty Kaplan: Yes. Adam Bernstein: About 400. www.learcenter.org 10 • THE NORMAN LEAR CENTER THE ART AND CRAFT OF THE OBITUARY •

Marty Kaplan: And who would have an advance written nificant, I wind up assigning it immediately because they’re about them? 105. Or if somebody’s in the hospital, I just keep it on, in the Gay Talese piece on Alden Whitman where he says, “Well, Adam Bernstein: It is similar to what Adam was describing. I prioritize the obituaries based on whether they’re like a I took over about four years ago, and we had about 75 in president and they’re now in a hospital or somebody who so-so shape and next to none on presidents. I thought that’s just turned 80.” the priority to be ready on somebody where you just don’t want to write it at 5 PM. So it would be no surprise that we’d Marty Kaplan: I thought it was interesting that he chooses want to be ready. It would be massively embarrassing if The people whose careers are largely behind them so that they Post didn’t have something ready to go on a major figure like don’t have to be updated too much. that. Adam Bernstein: Right. Adam Clymer: God help us if we had — either of us had — to run the wire story. Adam Clymer: Presidents being the exception.

Janice Hume: That’s right. Adam Bernstein: Yes, exactly.

Adam Bernstein: So once we take care of the paramount Adam Clymer: Gerald Ford left office in 1977, and within a figures like that, it comes down to just what interests you. year or two, The Times reporter who had covered him wrote I like to have a mix of political figures but cultural figures. an advance obituary. It was very good and it was updated a little bit at a time for a while, and then maybe it hadn’t been Ronnie Biggs, the great train robber, died the other day, and touched for 15 years. They asked me to take a look at it a I’d been waiting for 10 years just because there was some- year or so before he actually died. body I talked to in the newsroom who said, “You have to do it. He’s great. He’s wonderful.” I had never heard of him Some of the things that weren’t in it originally, for example, before when I came aboard The Post. And I said, “Sure, I’ll the Helsinki Accords, had come to seem meaningful by then, look into it,” and I was riveted by every detail of this scoun- whereas they hadn’t seemed all that important to a very drel’s life. So it is a mix of people who are significant and good reporter at the time. The whole Watergate rethinking notorious. — or the rethinking about the pardon — had become an element of general regard about Ford. And so I changed it Marty Kaplan: And if you hear that someone is ill, has gone quite a bit. I kept some of the stuff he had, but I took a lot of to a hospital, I don’t want to say there’s an ambulance-chas- it out and put other stuff in. ing element in this, but is there a sense in which you have to keep your eye on that radar? Marty Kaplan: Something else Alden Whitman says was that in 1965, he began the practice of interviewing subjects Adam Bernstein: Yes, I think that would be smart for any for posthumous publication. obituary writer or editor to do. I think there are a couple of websites that I always check out. If somebody is 105 and I Adam Clymer: Right. The significance of Alden Whitman is never heard of them. I always check it out, and if they’re sig- that he was the first modern-day obituary writer who per-

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sonalized obituaries. Billy Wilder was somebody who was right on my radar as soon as I got to The Post, and I wanted to write about. I Obituaries in the 19th century in England, in particular, were wanted to interview Jack Lemmon, who had obviously an occupation of great reward. There were very ornate, lyri- worked with Billy Wilder on a bunch of movies, and I placed cally written obituaries about Walt Whitman and the Duke a call to his representatives who said he absolutely refused, of Wellington, in particular, I remember, just from having he didn’t want any part of it, and he died two weeks later. I written a little bit about the history of obituaries. thought this is not going to work out very well. But a couple It was really in the early 20th century in American newspa- times I have. There is a danger in interviewing people in ad- pers when the very terse style of writing came into vogue vance. I think, Adam, you’ve done it pretty successfully. that obituaries took a dive and it was a place where people Adam Clymer: I do it almost all the time. who couldn’t do anything else tended to write. And Alden Whitman of The New York Times was the first to really take Marty Kaplan: Really? the form and personalize it, putting in lively details and as- sessing a life in a much more academically satisfying way. So Adam Clymer: Yes. it is a combination of the personality and the fuller assess- Adam Bernstein: To me, the danger is either the person is ment that left everything else in the dust. horrified at the idea and turns you down flat — which col- Starting in the 1980s, you had this gang of mischievous- ors your impression of the person — or they embrace it so minded newspaper reporters in London who started writ- wholeheartedly that they go on for hours and hours and ing more about starlets, eccentrics and rogues who have hours with stories that are impossible to verify. Then you’ve led another wave of transforming the obituary’s style once spent so much time invested in the material that it is, for me again. There’s a balance between the more formal style of anyway, how do you chop it down to a publishable length? an Alden Whitman and the more colorful way of writing that Marty Kaplan: Adam Clymer, does that correspond to your some of the British people did. experience?

Marty Kaplan: Turning to the source perhaps of some of Adam Clymer: No, not exactly, but I have the advantage. that material — the advance interview — have you con- I can take as long as I want to get one done and not wor- ducted any? ry about what’s in the daily paper other than being told, Adam Bernstein: Yes, a couple times. “Somebody is in the hospital and I think he may go tomor- row night.” Well, then I can do it in a hurry. Marty Kaplan: And are you, as Alden Whitman was called, “Mr. Bad News” when you arrive? I take a long time, and I don’t mind a long interview. My usu- al technique with the interview is to call up and say, “The Adam Bernstein: I don’t have that stature, I’m afraid. It Times has asked me to do a story about your career,” and didn’t turn out very well. I love old movies, and one of the it seems like the only question mark that raises to a lot of great pleasures of my job is I get to write about all the peo- people is, “What took them so long?” ple I love watching on Turner Classic Movies.

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Marty Kaplan: Not, “What do they know?” “Well, really? Tell me more about how you’re feeling and when we can get together.” And he said, “I’d love to have Adam Clymer: Some of them figure it out right away, some lunch with you next week. Can we arrange that?” He was of them figure it out halfway through the interview, and from New York and not from a particularly prosperous back- some say when it is finished, “Now, when do you expect this ground, but he talked like a character out of a Noel Coward to appear?” to which I say, “I don’t know. That’s up to the play. “Dear boy,” he would always say. editors.” And I said, “Well, I’d love to have lunch with you but under Marty Kaplan: And have either of you found that because one condition, that I’m not doing this to waste my time, that those people you’re interviewing understand they’re speak- I don’t want you telling me how everything in your career ing for posterity, if they do understand it, does that get them was a total misunderstanding and how you were really a to tell you stuff that they would not ordinarily say? great guy.”

Adam Clymer: Maybe a little, but then they don’t necessar- He goes, “Oh, no, no, everything I did was terrible. I’ll tell ily know that when they’re talking to me. They just think it is you all about it.” And I said, “Great.” So that was beneficial. something that’s going to appear next week. If they ask me, That interview was probably the best advance interview I I tell them what it is, and one or two people I’ve figured were ever had because he told me stuff that I couldn’t learn just too smart to pull this on, so I told them straight up. from reading all the clips.

Marty Kaplan: Did it loosen their tongues? Adam Clymer: I get stuff that I can easily ignore, although Adam Clymer: I don’t remember it being particularly so. sometimes the fact that somebody thinks this was a most shining moment and nobody else did is worth putting in, Adam Bernstein: In one of my favorite stories that I’ve ever “While widely condemned by other members of his party, written, I was successful in getting this person to talk more Jones said he was still proudest of doing this, and so…” And forthrightly about his career. It was a lobbyist here in Wash- so even the lies tell you something. ington for a series of dictators and despotes, and he called me up and said he was dying. “How were these things Marty Kaplan: Janice, earlier, Adam Bernstein mentioned done?” he asked. I said, “Well,” — I had no idea who he was, that an obituary renders a judgment or a verdict, has a point so I said, “Please tell me your name.” He said, “Edward von of view. In the 19th century obituaries that you’ve described, Kloberg III.” I said, “Oh, really, okay?” And you get lots of they’re celebratory essentially. requests sometimes from very prominent Washington law- Janice Hume: Yes. yers. Not every story is super exciting, so I said, “Okay.” I started typing in his name, and every reference was to the Marty Kaplan: Do you find that that then goes away and “despicable Edward von Kloberg.” something else comes in?

Marty Kaplan: It was a Google fill-in-the-blank? Janice Hume: You have to understand that for the first part of the 19th century, really up until the Civil War, there really Adam Bernstein: Suddenly my interest piqued, and I said, were no reporters, so you didn’t get the journalist written

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obituary that you do after the Civil War. So most of the infor- Adam Bernstein: That was before my time there at The Post. mation comes from a variety of sources, I’d say. It is families; it is things that editors gathered together and published. Marty Kaplan: That was a bombshell to some people.

And so, yes, those obituaries were more celebratory and Adam Bernstein: I’m talking about for lesser known folks. more sentimental. The language in the obituaries was very To include for an average person that the cause of death sentimental. Even the causes of death. People didn’t die; was complications from AIDS or suicide, for example, it is a they were “scathed by the wing of the angel of death” or way of measuring the awareness, at least in the community “removed by…” level, of AIDS, etcetera.

Marty Kaplan: What a way to go. Adam Clymer: Well, cancer, for example, for a long time was an unmentioned cause of death. Janice Hume: There was one that I have in here marked that literally the cause of death in the obituary was “a visitation Marty Kaplan: And how do you verify on deadline when from God.” And so that language would never occur in a your sources might be people with a vested interest? journalistically written obituary, but it was all over the place Adam Bernstein: On more public figures, I think there’s a in these early ones. long track record and you can clearly see what’s been writ- Marty Kaplan: And speaking of cause of death, how did that ten and what has been written multiple times, not that that become a rule, or is that just essential for an obituary that makes it always correct. I think any good reporter has a you must say the precise cause of death? certain instinct for what sounds right, and there’s a way of couching the language if you’re not 100% certain. We al- People didn’t Adam Bernstein: To us, it is. To us, it is critical. It answers ways like to double-check things. If I have any uncertainty die; they were the basic question of why. Even if somebody was 116, there’s at all, I usually reach out to whoever I’m talking to, who- “scathed by the always a cause. ever’s a representative of the family and say, “Here’s what I read. Does that sound right to you?” And if they change wing of the angel Marty Kaplan: When you know you have to write an obituary it, I’ll sometimes mention both things: what was widely re- of death” or and you’re interviewing survivors, I assume, family members ported and what this person representing the family had to “removed by…”. to some degree, and you’re on a deadline, how do you verify say about it. the information? Janice Hume For local residents, it can often be complicated because Adam Bernstein: Let me go back real quickly to the other usually it is people who have never been written about be- point because I think it speaks to a larger question histori- fore, so where do you go to get the information? There are cally, that also Janice raised, and that is the cause of death a couple sources like Who’s Who in Government if you’re can be important. The Post was probably one of the first dealing with a government official, and that’s often led to newspapers to include AIDS as a cause of death. surprising the families of the deceased who always thought Marty Kaplan: Was that with Rock Hudson or before? their father or mother or sister or brother did something en- tirely different from what was in black and white.

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Marty Kaplan: Janice, in the history of obituaries, where do en who was his mother. They were both married to someone survivors come up? Are they always mentioned, never men- else at the time, and they pretended that it was that per- tioned? Does it follow any pattern? son’s child. So we ended up calling him “son.”

Janice Hume: The survivors were mentioned, not long lists Marty Kaplan: One of my colleagues at USC said to me that of them, but oftentimes they were survived by a wife but not he found it disconcerting that the children of his second wife a name of a wife. So survived by children. So the survivors and their children relentlessly had to be called “step” so have been there always. that the step-grandchildren in his life, whom he regarded as authentically his grandchildren, and vice versa – this struck What typically wasn’t there was any discussion of a funer- him as a convention which did not square with reality. al, particularly in the old ones when the publication would have come long after the person was buried. But survivors Adam Bernstein: This happens often where families want have been a part of the obituary content, maybe not a list of to be remembered one way. Newspapers have very different names but family members. policies, and sometimes, especially on sensitive issues like the death of somebody, it can cause all kinds of agony. The Adam Bernstein: Similar to what Adam was saying about best thing we can do is just explain, “We’re not doing this to the cause of death, if it is a major public figure, we can’t hurt you; it is the way we like to lay things out.” keep it out of the newspaper for a cause even if the family doesn’t provide it. For whatever reason, the newspaper has formed that poli- cy for us. For us, we often say, “Which children come from And the same with multiple marriages. We do our best to which marriage?” and we label stepchildren as stepchildren put in the first name and the maiden name. If it is a man who unless they’re legally adopted, and we just lay it out as it died, his wife’s maiden name, as well, as just part of the his- is, and sometimes that causes a lot of hurt in families, and torical record. We view marriages, no matter how long ago we just have to say, “Well, I’m very sorry. We mean no dis- or how brief, as vital as major events in somebody’s life. So respect.” And they may not be happy with it. It is not often, even if we often bump up against families calling in and say, but occasionally you get people who are very angry with “Well, it wasn’t that important. You can leave out that first what you put in the newspaper, like any other news article. wife,” or the second — first and second wife or the first, sec- ond, and third wife. Despite the fact that it may have been Marty Kaplan: On the topic of marriages in The Washing- brief but also the person may have had several children with ton Post, online, The Post solicits from the community pro- that spouse, we’re getting more secrets than a priest is of- posals for people who should get an obituary, and there’s ten. one box to be filled in. All marriages, including names of spouses, lengths, and reasons for end, in case of divorce or Adam Clymer: Let me tell you a story. I did an advance on death, The Washington Post will not run an obituary unless somebody, and I was tracking down survivors, and one of all marriages are included. them was initially regarded as a stepson. Didn’t want to be called a stepson. And it turned out that, in fact, he was the Adam Bernstein: We don’t like to surprise anybody. natural son of his father before the father married the wom- Marty Kaplan: Do you have to be an instant expert on fields www.learcenter.org 15 • THE NORMAN LEAR CENTER THE ART AND CRAFT OF THE OBITUARY •

that you knew nothing about until someone died and you in Rancho Mirage, California. discovered you had to? You’re writing an advance obituary on a president. You find Adam Clymer: Once in a long while, I’m writing about some- what’s the most important “who” clause. body who I knew nothing about or knew one thing about and they needed more than one thing in the obit, and so I find Marty Kaplan: You wrote, Adam, if you have a copy of it out things about them. handy, about a stripper, which has quite an amazing “who” clause. Adam Bernstein: It is a great question. I would encour- age you to read the obits I write about people, like nuclear Adam Bernstein: Not Fanny Fox, I’m afraid. physicists, precisely because I don’t know anything about Marty Kaplan: No. Do you have it handy? Liz Renay. I have a it. And I’ve usually consulted about 19 specialists up to the copy if you don’t. point where I once got a call from somebody saying, “God, are you the physics reporter at the newspaper?” I said, “No, Adam Bernstein: I do. I do. I really do. really, I’m not.” Marty Kaplan: If you could just read the first, the “who” But you do have to become an instant specialist. I remember clause, the opener. having to write Ray Charles in three hours, and to some de- gree, I was familiar enough with the music, but it is just ex- Adam Bernstein: “Liz Renay, who died at 80 in Las Vegas, cruciating to have to do that because inevitably, you’ll miss was a gangster’s ma, ex-con, author, painter, stripper, Hol- a terrific anecdote, you’ll miss a very important moment in lywood Boulevard streaker, actress, and charm school in- the life that could change the whole tone of the story, and structor. there’s only so much you can do about it. So that was writ- “She was convicted of perjury in 1959 during the federal tax ten early on — very early in my time at The Post. I would’ve evasion trial of her boyfriend, racketeer Mickey Cohen. Giv- otherwise been prepared. en a three-year sentence, she was released after 27 months Marty Kaplan: I’m going to move on in a moment to the third for good behavior. topic that I mentioned, which is what do we do, how do we “This is her quote: ‘It sure knocked the hell out of my career use obituaries, how do they function. But, first, I just wanted when I went to Terminal Island,” she once said of the low- to pick one aspect of, the template or the classic form of security facility in California. “I would’ve been a big star had obituaries, which is called the “who clause,” the clause that I not gone to prison.’ sums up the life or the thing one remembers. Adam, do you have an example there? “Her sense of her own potential was undoubtedly exagger- ated, as was everything else about this starlet, who boasted Adam Clymer: Former President Gerald R. Ford, who gently of her measurements, 44DD-26-33. She once won a Marilyn led the United States out of a tumultuous Watergate era but Monroe look-alike contest sponsored by 20th Century Fox lost his own bid for election after pardoning former Presi- Studios. Her acting portfolio consisted of roles in movies dent Richard M. Nixon, died at 6:45 PM Tuesday at his home such as The Thrill Killers, Interlude of Lust, and her final fea-

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ture in 2002, Mark of the Astro-Zombies.” you are. So even on topics that I feel very confident about, I’ll always reach out to double-check my opinion or my gen- Janice Hume: And I think that “who” clause is so impor- eral sense of knowledge from my opinion, but specifically tant because when you take them all together — and I on topics ranging from physics to American history, it is in- said this in the beginning — if you’re an egalitarian society, valuable to get an extra opinion. It could totally reshape or how we remember an individual citizen’s life is important, add another dimension that wouldn’t have otherwise been and when we take all these together, we learn something in your story, and the thing that I hate most is seeing that about ourselves. Whether it is the stripper or whether it is other dimension in his newspaper. I try to instill that quality the president, we learn something about what our values in the people who write obituaries for me, as well as in try- are and what we want to remember. And to me, that is the ing to maintain it myself, because otherwise you’re going to value to for the historian, much more so than, I’m going to have a second-rate obit. It is not worth your time. go back and use a fact in an obituary in a biography that I might write. Adam Clymer: I’ve written one biography. I took about eight years to do it. It was a lot of work. I liked it, but these Adam Clymer: Well, I’m glad to hear that we’re of some are mini biographies. You don’t take nearly that much time. ...historians are interest to historians because historians are of a lot of use You don’t have footnotes. Occasionally you attribute some- of a lot of use to to us. And, frankly, we generally write about people when thing, but an awful lot of what you put in an obit, you just us. And, frankly, they’re no longer being covered much in the newspapers but state as fact. have found their way into good books, and so I look at them. we generally It is interesting because you learn things about people. I did write about Adam Bernstein: Yes, 100% agree. I couldn’t do it just Warren Rudman once, and I had only a general impression people when based on newspaper clips. The historian is an added per- of him. But as I got to study him, I learned more and more spective that is lacking in the daily coverage, and books about how much combat in Korea had got to him. Now, in they’re no longer by historians are critical to understanding the Civil Rights fact, I couldn’t get the word “combat” into the lead because being covered movement if you’re writing about anybody who was promi- it didn’t seem important to an editor, but the piece is still much in the nent in civil rights. Anybody who was prominent in Washing- fairly heavily flavored. And it wasn’t that I thought he was a newspapers. ton politics, just reading newspaper articles, you don’t get pacifist or anything; I just hadn’t known. enough sense of the person. It is usually about the topic of Adam Clymer the day but not enough context. So Google Books is tremen- I’d done another person of some prominence who had a civil dous as a resource for me anyway. rights role that he never publicized and that was, by and large, unnoticed as it happened but was important, or at Marty Kaplan: Do you occasionally call a historian? least when I talked to him, he said he thought it was.

Adam Bernstein: All the time. All the time. So, please, if Marty Kaplan: Earlier, we were talking about the way in you’re historians, give me your cards because I need to which an obituary is, in effect, a judgment or a verdict, a reach you. first attempt at assessing someone’s reputation. First, let My view is you have to reach people who are smarter than me just ask, historically, is there a sense that that’s what’s going on, or is that a recent, modern thing?

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Janice Hume: I think it is a recent, modern thing in terms satisfying to hold this guy to account finally for the more of a real assessment. I think the earlier obituaries, they as- than 10,000 killings and kidnappings and to have him hang sessed, but it was in a different way and they were more himself with his own words. I remember at the end of the celebratory. piece—.

Marty Kaplan: And as you write verdicative obits, do you “In 2012, Argentine journalist Ceferino Reato wrote a book feel the weight of them, the impact they will have on, for about the junta” — and this is where historians come into example, historians, or were you not being entirely serious play for me — “wrote a book about the junta that included when you said you were glad to know that historians paid extensive jailhouse interviews with General Videla. It was attention? published as the final disposition of Videla’s confession on the disappeared, and the General admitted 7,000 or 8,000 You don’t feel as you’re writing it that you are, in effect, people were made to disappear. ‘There was no alternative,’ sketching? General Videla was quoted as telling Reato. Military leaders, Adam Clymer: Well, yes, I’m doing that, but I would assume quote, were in agreement that it was the price that must be that anyone who’s doing a biography has had more time and paid to win the war against subversion and we needed that energy and that he or she isn’t going to draw particularly on it not be obvious so society would not realize it. It was nec- — they may draw on some story I wrote about their career, essary to eliminate a large group of people who could not be but the obit, yes, they ought to do their own. brought to justice nor openly shot either.”

Adam Bernstein: I’d say you’ve noticed a lot of historians I’m relying on historians like this gentleman in Argentina to have cited obituaries in their own books, I’ve noticed. I see do a lot of the work that I don’t have time to do, but ul- it more as an accountability story more than writing for all timately is in the service of holding people to account de- time. I think an obituary’s — it is a final summing up of a life. pending on the story that you write. It is holding somebody to account. Just as an investigative Marty Kaplan: Other than historians, general readers — story tries to do, we do it because everything about them up who make the obituary page in many papers the most pop- to that point is finally known. You’re not just inching. It is not ular page — they’re reading it for their purposes, too, to like a lot of political coverage where every story is just — it certainly find out about members of their community but moves the ball an inch forward. This is the ball stopped. to some degree, to find out what’s a good life, what’s a suc- Adam Clymer: On good days, an inch forward. cessful life, what are the secrets to happiness. Is that desire to learn on the part of your readers something that you try Adam Bernstein: I see it more as holding people to account. to fulfill as you tell about the life?Adam Clymer: I guess so, I got to read from some more fun stories, but the ones that I but I’m not thinking about the reader particularly. If you ask also like to write about are about — when I do politicians, I me does it do this, I say, “I hope so.” I’m trying to appraise enjoy going through all their life. a life as best I can, and whether it is one to be followed or not, I’m dealing right now with a politician who’s something To me, one of the most rewarding is about the leader of the of a scoundrel. Argentine junta, Jorge Rafael Videla. To me, it was deeply

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Marty Kaplan: I can’t imagine who that is. bring up this whole new world because they’re not con- trolled by the journalists and people use them for these re- Adam Clymer: Oh, it is hard. We search them out. And I ally amazing things. certainly hope that nobody, except maybe a few young poli- ticians, is likely to take his role as an example. There are They use them to speak to the dead. You’ll have these long probably a few who say, “Hey, that was a good idea,” but sections that are connected with mainstream newspapers, most won’t. but in the message board to an obituary where stories are told that have no context, nobody knows what the heck Adam Bernstein: If you read newspaper comments, you’ll they’re talking about, it is, “Go speak to my Aunt Marjorie often see, “Well, why would The Post write about this per- in the afterlife and tell her that I miss her or tell her…” All son? What a despicable human being.” Or, “Gee, that’s nice. these very strange things that are connected with these What a lovely life well lived.” they — there’s never any mid- mainstream newspaper obituaries but really through Leg- dle ground in comments often. acy.com, and it is very strange and very interesting. The In- And my view is that’s nice but ultimately that’s not why ternet has created ways of interactivity that I think are going we’re doing it. We’re not doing it to make people angry for to totally change the way we talk about death stories and sure, and we’re not doing it necessarily to please everybody. obituaries from now on. It is really to tell the story of a life that’s had an impact for Marty Kaplan: You are a colorful figure in that world, “the A big part of better or for worse. Kid.” obituaries are the way we Marty Kaplan: But, historically, have they been seen as les- Adam Bernstein: I was a small role in that book, but that sons for the people who were still alive? world is fascinating to me, too. I don’t pay attention to the remember a good life or just Janice Hume: I think they’re instructive. A big part of obitu- people who want to communicate with the afterlife. The aries are the way we remember a good life or just an inter- Internet is made for people who have compulsions about an interesting esting life, and they are instructive and they’re powerful. everything, and for obituaries, these are people who are life, and they more obsessed with obituaries than I am, and I get paid to Many scholars have written about death stories and their are instructive write them. What’s useful about it to me is getting a jump cultural resonance of death stories and how they are more and they’re powerful than other kinds of stories, so these obituaries are, on the Associated Press because somebody in Fargo, North I think, important, they resonate culturally, and they are in- Dakota, or somebody in rural England has gotten word that powerful. seems fairly reliable that so-and-so is near death or criti- structive for a lot of people. Janice Hume cally ill, and they’ll include a link usually. You don’t trust Marty Kaplan: Adam mentioned reading comments, which it if there’s no link, but if there’s a link to some publication takes us to the advent of the Internet and the ways in which that’s reporting that so-and-so is ill and you would never there can be feedback loops and the infinite shelf space of have come across it otherwise — you take everything with the Internet. Janice, you’ve been studying online obits, yes? a grain of salt. But it is critical to get the jump on the news cycle. Janice Hume: I’ve been studying the message boards con- nected with obituaries, which are just really fascinating and If I discover that a famous person is seriously ill, I’ll just use

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it as another source of information and apply news judg- nicating with the other side, is that material that historians ment based on some further research. But it is really use- should be looking at, are they looking at? ful to me to get information before the AP puts out an alert that so-and-so has died or somebody calls The Post because Janice Hume: That’s a good question. I know that there finding out when it happens is not good enough anymore; have been studies of Facebook memorial pages and those basically, you need to be ready. sorts of things. I think it shows how regular people make use of obituaries and how they connect. One of the things What we Marty Kaplan: Adam Clymer, one of the things I found fasci- in our study that we found that I think is useful for maybe found in the nating about The New York Times’ online obituary presence, journalists, because when a journalist writes an obit for just message boards which I don’t think is the case of The Washington Post, is a regular person, the sources are family, the sources are the were these that in addition to running lots and lots of obituaries, The funeral home or the cause of death or wherever they get the really strong New York Times has a “From the Archives” section, and just information. in the last couple of days, you could find the obits of James connections Baldwin, Carl Sagan, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Roberto Clemente. What we found in the message boards were these really between people Is that something you’ve noticed? strong connections between people who were not in that who were not in small circle that would have been sources. They are cowork- Adam Clymer: Well, I’ve noticed that they do it. I see it my- ers. They’re people who saw the person walking down the that small circle self when I’m looking one up online, but it is not something street. So a note on a message board would talk about how, that would have anyone ever — it seems to me like a nice idea, but I don’t “I miss seeing so-and-so walk his dog past my door.” been sources. have anything to do with it. What we found were these really strong emotional connec- Janice Hume Marty Kaplan: But the notion that these obits will remain tions that people other than the typical sources had with in circulation in ways that they may not have before, poten- the deceased, there’s something to be mined from that. tially increasing their impact and reach in a way that might There’s something interesting going on there that someone not have been the case before. would take the time to go to a newspaper website in an obit- uary and make a comment and participate in a bereavement Adam Bernstein: The Times has harnessed that. The Times process that they probably didn’t ever have the opportunity is quick to know that their obits have traditionally been the to do before. definitive story of a life, and it is a great way of marketing it to historians, basically, and to the general public. I have two Marty Kaplan: I’m going to propose that questions from the children, and if I need to teach them in a hurry about some room be part of the conversation. historical figure, about an era, I’ll say, “Here, let’s print out this obituary,” which is free online. I think it is a great ser- Audience Member: I’m James Banner. It turns out that I vice, actually. write obituaries for my college class, about 1,000 people, and of course, I steer clear of saying anything bad about Marty Kaplan: Janice, as a historian, and as a historian them. It seems to me that’s a rule. One of my classmates of journalism, do you think that what can be learned from died. I didn’t know him. I asked people who knew him to these message boards, setting aside perhaps those commu- describe him to me. I got nowhere.

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Finally, I found a classmate who would tell me why. He ever come across,” I’d say the follow-up question would be, said, “Because he was the biggest son of a (expletive) I ever “Okay, can you give me a couple of examples?” knew.” I would love to have put that in the obituary as giving some a flavor of the man, but I did not. You’ve raised a great point about the British obituaries. I love reading them, but I can’t in a million years imagine hav- But that raises the question as to what is permissible to re- ing them run over here. I’ll give you my favorite example of port in an obituary in newspapers. British obituaries can be all time from The Guardian in 2001. I’ve saved the link on far tarter, can include criticism, can, in fact, be nasty. I’ve my computer because I just find it amazing that this would never read obituaries like that in your two newspapers. Oc- run in print. casionally, you’ll quote someone who says something criti- cal, of course, but that’s fitting, and it is in part of the larger “The death of Simon Raven at the age of 73 after suffering a context of the life that you’re writing about. stroke is proof that the devil looks after his own. He ought by rights to have died of shame at 30 or of drink at 50. In- But this has to do with the inhibitions that American news- stead, he survived to produce 25 novels, including Alms papers have, probably self-imposed, but also what the for Oblivion, a 10-volume saga of English upper-class life, three of you think is the nature of an obituary and the limits numerous screenplays, eight volumes of essays and mem- beyond which we, as Americans, or that you, cannot go. oirs, including Shadows on the Grass, the filthiest book on cricket ever written.” Marty Kaplan: Let’s respond to that. Panelists, what are the limits? It is a nice blending of positive and negative, but at the same time, they’re almost always unsigned and you never know Adam Clymer: I don’t know. I think you’re probably inclined where any of this information is coming from. Journalists to look for things that are important and you probably are don’t footnote, period. There’s no sourcing, there’s no say- a little more positive than a lot of daily coverage of the per- ing where they took it from. In my opinion, it is almost to- son might produce because you look back on things. They’re tally untrustworthy, but it is fun to read. probably bent a little bit in a positive direction. Marty Kaplan: Did you want to comment on this? Adam Bernstein: I would say that the negative aspects of a life are not necessarily what would make somebody most Janice Hume: Some of the older obituaries are so polite that important, why you’re writing about them in the first place. they force-fit people into certain categories even if they re- Sometimes it is. Sometimes the defining moment of the life ally didn’t belong there. You mentioned early on Christianity is something deeply awful. being a highly valued attribute. There were many obituaries that said, you know, “So-and-so wasn’t a Christian but re- If somebody is involved in a major political scandal, let’s ally behaved like one,” or, “had a deathbed conversion.” So say, you can’t just bury that because otherwise it looks like they were so polite that they were trying to force-fit people you’re whitewashing the life on the other hand. who were notorious into what they thought was the right I’d say it is all fair game if you can back it up. So if somebody way to be. — if your friend said, “This man’s the biggest (expletive) I’ve Audience Member: Roger Louis, University of Texas. www.learcenter.org 21 • THE NORMAN LEAR CENTER THE ART AND CRAFT OF THE OBITUARY •

I just wanted to pursue the British side of it for a minute. I wish they would have a little bit more of the American Another tradition that had recently developed with The In- standard of telling the reader so the reader can render his dependent not having the back files and so on, they simply or her own judgment about where it is coming from so they send out requests to people who might have known the in- know, well, this is a friend of theirs saying it or this is some- [Obituaries] dividual very well, and that’s where you get the very penned body who’s their sworn enemy, or it is someone who served are like short portraits, which are very informative but sometimes very with them in combat. stories, and they biased. Adam Clymer: Well, actually, The Times has been clearing read as such I get the impression that there is more a preoccupation in out a lot of its space, getting rid of stuff. I prevailed on them weeks or years England perhaps than there is in this country with obituar- to keep the person files because I may be the only one who after they’ve ies, and I said that only because a couple years ago, I met uses, but if I’m writing a story about somebody who served been written. someone at a party who said, “Oh, very glad to meet you. in the Senate in the ‘70s, there was a bunch of clips from I’ve just been assigned to write your obituary.” Gave me them. There’s clips from The Times, The Post, if it was early They’re not like pause for thought. enough, The Washington Star, the Journal, the Baltimore so much of the Sun. daily ephemera Marty Kaplan: Any comment? Now, you could probably locate all of these through some of the news Adam Bernstein: To your point, there’s no interference, online search thing. Would take you a lot longer. Somebody cycle... whatever, in any obituary. The only standard is get it as best has already done a certain amount of selecting, so you lay you can. I’ve never — never — in all my years had anybody Adam Bernstein the clips out on the table and you can use them much more say you have to tilt it one way or another. Sometimes, it is, easily. So they’re not clipping the newspapers anymore. So “Can you move up this bit of information?” but that’s with whoever’s doing this in 20 years will find a different realm. any story, but nothing in a way that would bias an obituary one way or another. Audience Member: My name is Steve Wasserman. I worked for many years at the Los Angeles Times. The Los Angeles I wish that the British obituaries would take more time to tell Times did not actually begin an official obituaries desk until you where the information is coming from because it is often the mid-’90s largely. I always thought, because it seemed worth knowing. They’re great reads, first and foremost. like a heresy in Los Angeles, which was given to a notion I once had a British obit writer help me on something. “Say, of perpetual youth, that death was an affront, and the pa- I’m just trying to elevate it that little bit,” and sure enough, per decided not to cover it and perhaps it wouldn’t occur he came back and said, “How about this way?” and it was if they just ignored it for many years. Finally, they relented great. They’re master storytellers and the best obituaries and gave in. are stories. They’re like short stories, and they read as such But my serious question has to do with the distinction be- weeks or years after they’ve been written. They’re not like tween a journalist’s obligation and the historian’s craft. We so much of the daily ephemera of the news cycle, and that’s write under deadline. Sometimes if you do something in ad- what is so appealing to me. vance, you have the luxury of doing something more delib- erative.

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But to tell a story on myself, it fell to me when I worked at ner at Chez Panisse with Susan and I walked out to have a the Los Angeles Times to write the obituary of a good friend cigarette and found her making out with Jean-Pierre Gorin, of mine that I’d known for 30 years, Susan Sontag. who’d assisted Jean-Luc Godard in the making of Breath- less? That was pretty impressive, but it didn’t belong in the I knew many things about Susan. Of course, I had to answer obituary. the question of why is she a person of public importance. And so, as with historians, so with journalists, the salient I wonder if you could talk more about the obligations of factors — or you have to decide what to include and what what to include as a journalist and what you think might be to leave out. the historian’s responsibility or the biographer’s craft?

I left some things out of that obituary for which I was round- Adam Bernstein: That is a very good point. I wrote Susan ly criticized the very next day by some fellow reporters who Sontag, as well. I think I was the only person in the news- came up to me with astonishment that I had left out delib- room who subscribed to the New York Review of Books. erately. I pointed out to them, any discussion at all in the obituary of her sexuality or what was presumed to be her But I couldn’t find anything about Liebovitz in any of the clip- sexuality. pings, and so it wasn’t in there at all. Of course, the news then came out that maybe they were partners or whatever They were clearly appalled that, as they put it, “Why, she the story was. And I remember getting calls or e-mails and was a lesbian and she’d lived with Annie Liebovitz and how criticized in print for ignoring it, as if we were deliberately possibly could I have left such an important aspect out of trying to downplay the fact that she was a lesbian. her life?” I tend to be of the belief that if someone is public at all about I said, “I happen to know about this matter, I think, a little their private life, we’ll put a line in. But it is not the reason more than you do.” She never lived with Annie Liebovitz. She we’re writing the story unless that person tends to make it never made discussions of sexuality a part of her work. the reason of their. There’s some news value attached to it, like they made a public. They made their private life very However, in a biography, I would feel very different. I would public in that way or they somehow incorporated it into feel if I was writing the biography of a person, then almost their work. everything is up for grabs — the private life, as well as the public life. If I had felt that her private life had been a sub- It is relevant when it is part of the public life. We can’t really ject of her work and had been an important part of the intel- know much about people’s private lives, so I tend to person- lectual contribution for which she was known, I would cer- ally steer clear out of it unless it is something that’s very tainly have included it. well documented. And I remember with her, there was next to nothing outside of her marriage to her husband, and her But I thought, on balance, it was not, and I knew Susan had son, and that thing. very strong feelings about keeping private her private life, which was bisexual. As I said to my friends, my colleagues, Marty Kaplan: Steve, if I could just respond to that, as well, “Well, should I also have included the time when I had a din- and maybe contest the point, one of Susan Sontag’s seminal essays was Notes on Camp, which was a definition of gay www.learcenter.org 23 • THE NORMAN LEAR CENTER THE ART AND CRAFT OF THE OBITUARY •

sensibility. One could argue that that was a central forma- where they’re open to journalists, as well as to historians. tive aspect of her own work, and not to indicate that there was a personal connection might be considered a choice, as I think I qualify as being an amateur obituary writer, having opposed to, well, she never raised it. written one obituary to a colleague at UCLA, another histo- rian. And when he died, I was asked to write an obituary for Audience Member: I would say that that’s a matter of psy- the Pacific Historical Review. So a historian writing an obit chological speculation, which, however interesting, there’s for historical — an audience of historians. little evidence to suggest that that’s the case. And the sensi- bility that you describe as gay, arguably so in Notes on Camp After I wrote that, I saw that it appeared almost verbatim in — and, of course, I referred to Notes on Camp in the obitu- a publication of the University of California “In Memoriam,” ary, which made her famous — but I think it is quite elite to which they used to publish on all UC faculty who died. go from acknowledging that fact to weaving a speculative It also appeared in virtually the same form in the Los Ange- theory that has to do with who she slept with. les Times. I don’t know who wrote it, but it was interesting Marty Kaplan: Other questions from the room? Yes? If you that the journalistic milieu picked up that same obituary. I could stand and identify yourself first, please. don’t think that I’ll write another one unless a compelling reason comes up to do so. Audience Member: My name is Donald Alchiller, and I’m at We can’t really I think, though, that there are other ways of writing about Boston University. Thank you very much. It was a really in- know much formative and engaging panel. the dead, and one that hasn’t come up in the discussion today is the poetic homage, and it used to be much more about people’s I want to know if anybody on the panel has ever written obit- common for poets to write, in effect, a brief obituary or a private lives, uaries of famous animals that have died? And if so, did you eulogy to a friend. I have a wonderful photograph of a bust so I tend to ever get to interview them? of Charles Sumner, and at the bottom of the mat is a poem personally written in the hand of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, who Adam Bernstein: Political animals? was an admirer and friend of Sumner’s. steer clear out of it unless it Marty Kaplan: Well, Susan Orlean’s biography of Rin Tin Tin Also, I think if we could look at the huge literature of poetic is something recently. homage, to my way of thinking, the most beautiful of these that’s very well Adam Bernstein: No, we can’t turn people down and then images and celebrations was Walt Whitman’s When Lilacs documented. write about animals. Last in the Dooryard Bloom’d. Adam Bernstein Adam Clymer: Well, there may be a story in the newspaper So if you have any comments on poetry, I’d appreciate hear- if the well-known pet of the president or somebody dies. ing about that.

Audience Member: My name is Ludwig Lauerhass. I’m a re- Marty Kaplan: Well, as you said that, Adam, what occurred tired historian at UCLA, and before going on, I’d like to say to me was that the annual of The Lives They Lived issue of that we do have the Susan Sontag archive of papers at UCLA, the magazine. It may not be written by poets, but it is more poetic than the dailies.

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Adam Clymer: Oh, absolutely. And I think — and has got- Internet that gets Margalit to discover these obscure people ten more so. It is gotten more literary, for want of a better and their importance. And so somebody must be telling word, over the years. But as to poems per se, I have nothing, them, at least some of them. nothing to add. Marty Kaplan: If I could just take a prerogative, I want to Audience Member: Jane Hunter, Lewis & Clark College. take this opportunity to tell you just three quick favorite Thank you all. Fantastic. things that I came across that we didn’t manage to get to.

One question that I have, or observation really, I love us- One is an obit by Adam Bernstein about a bouncer, though ing obituaries with students, and one of the reasons I love he said, “I’m not a bouncer. I’m a — I do security.” And I just using them with students is because they take the present want to read the third graf of the piece. and the death and allow the writer, you all, to talk about the long span. “Security doer then because when a fellow is 6-foot-4 and 340 pounds, shaves his slab of head, lets his beard scraggle One obituary that came out in April was the obituary for Hen- downward like a forgotten member of ZZ Top, has dragon ry Prunier, and Henry Prunier was that member of the OSS tattoos slithering over nearly every pore, has his earlobes who was dropped behind Japanese lines and taught General stretched liked a tribesman’s, has a sorority’s worth of Giap to throw a grenade. I don’t know if you remember this. piercings over his face, deliberately burns symbols into And it was a fantastic obituary that really functioned as so- his fingers, and generally freaks people out with the silver cial and political history. horns protruding from his nostrils, one is inclined to call him whatever he wants to be called.” A terrific graf. So I’m wondering where you — I don’t know, Adam, wheth- er you know where you got that story. Prunier went on to Adam Bernstein: I usually like short sentences. become a mason, to run a masonry business in Worcester, Mass. after teaching Giap to win the — to beat the French Marty Kaplan: Another, we were talking about online. There and then the Americans. was an experiment conducted in Lancaster, Pennsylvania in the early days when newspapers were trying to figure out But do you get suggestions from people? This one actually how to monetize their content instead of giving it away for came out late, too. He died in March. The Times ran it in free. And Lancaster Online decided that they would put a April. Very interesting. pay wall — make all the other content free but put a pay wall around obituaries. Adam Clymer: Obviously, somebody who knew him and knew of him contacted The Times in that case, I think. “Hey, And the way the pay wall worked was if you lived outside of this guy died, and he was important,” and it was interesting Lancaster, you could read up to seven obituaries if you were in that way. following what was going on in your hometown. But after that, you had to pay $1.99 a month. I don’t know particularly. Nobody’s ever suggested that to me, but I’m not on the staff. I quoted one of Margalit Fox’s So if you didn’t know this and went to the obituary site after pieces, and obviously, it is not an utterly skillful use of the this policy was introduced, here’s what it said.

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“Welcome. Thank you for visiting the obituary pages of Lan- caster Online. If you are a new or infrequent visitor here to read about a friend or loved one, we extend our sympathy. There is no charge or need for a subscription.

If you are a frequent visitor staying in touch with our com- munity, you may read seven obituaries for a month.” And then it takes you to the $1.99 place.

And then, finally, a woman in New Jersey named Virginia Hicks, known as “Jersey Ginny,” who died in ‘90, wrote her own obituary, which she left behind to her family. A former waitress. “There will be no viewing, no funeral services,” she wrote. You should all have visited me with kind atten- tion when I needed you to put a smile on my face and love in my heart.”

I would like you to join me in telling our panelists how much we need them and gratitude for the smiles you have put on our faces. Thank you very much.

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