The Art & Craft of the Obituary
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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. www.learcenter.org 2 • THE NORMAN LEAR CENTER THE ART AND CRAFT OF THE OBITUARY • 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). www.learcenter.org 3 • THE NORMAN LEAR CENTER THE ART AND CRAFT OF THE OBITUARY • 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 www.learcenter.org 4 • THE NORMAN LEAR CENTER THE ART AND CRAFT OF THE OBITUARY • the Harvard Crimson, and wrote two books, Edward M.