Some of the greatest changes in journalism over the past century are in the ways deaths are reported. I’m not talking about the spectacular, I’m writing about the most common.
When I began my journalism career more than a half century ago, I was tasked almost immediately with writing obituaries. I learned quickly there is a difference between paid obituaries and actual news stories about the departed.
I was told that news writers must follow standards and guidelines provided by the Associated Press and United Press International. Their first rule was that such a news item does not include the deceased “running into the arms of Jesus” or being “swept way into Heaven” and other rosy depictions of the transition. In a nutshell, people do not pass away, they die.
These rules applied when I was employed by the Wayland Globe and the Albion Evening Recorder. They sometimes caused a few misunderstandings and hard feelings. And they still exist to this day.
I recently absorbed criticism for deleting all references to the deceased entering the Gates of Heaven or going away to be with the Lord. My explanation of following the dictates provided by the AP and UPI were not welcome. Nor was the attempt to explain the difference between posting a paid notice, in which the customer can have said or written whatever he of she wants. The free notice is subject to the rules.
The Albion Recorder had long standing rules about publishing obituaries or death stories free of charge, but subject to editing. That didn’t stop an Albion College professor and his wife screaming at me over the phone because I refused to include among the survivors “and those whose lives she touched.”
I’ve even been taken to task for publishing a death story at all because the deceased didn’t want it, though she was a public figure as an elementary teacher.
The AP and UPI insist that the writer first give the name, age, address, and perhaps cause of death in the first paragraph. Then comes what the deceased may have been known for, as in job or public service performed. Then comes the list of survivors, followed by mentioning who predeceased the recently departed.
The conclusion of the obituary is supposed to be led off by providing information about visitation and then funeral time and place. And don’t write “funeral service” because the funeral is a service.
The conclusion should be to whom or what memorial contributions may be made.
The nature of how we deal with deaths also has undergone many changes.
When I peruse the Wayland Globe issues from 100 years ago particularly, I noticed many of the services were held in the victim’s home. It wasn’t until afterward that the custom of funerals in churches or in funeral homes became more common.
But now it’s almost come full circle. A growing number of the deceased families are foregoing funerals altogether and opting instead for more personal celebrations of life at a home or at a local watering hole. I don’t know if it’s because funerals are getting too expensive or the deceased requested no service at all.
We live in a constantly changing world, which sometimes can exemplified as simply an obituary or a death story. What I do is what I did 52 years ago. It’s changing, yet as changeless as canal water.
