Obituaries

Since I've come to IC I've heard from numerous professors that journalism students shouldn't be surprised if the first job they get out of college is writing obituaries. It's the starting-level position. It's where you prove yourself.

I found it interesting that the News Reporting textbook presents obituary writing as a noble profession requiring grace and sensitivity.

I also noticed that the textbook made a point of labeling obituaries as news stories, requiring the same lead and body format as other news stories. At the same time, however, there are elements of feature-style writing present in obituaries (that's my interpretation).

When you write an obituary, the text says, you should write about life. Write about the essence of an individual's existence, don't just "merely note" their death. This leaves the journalist looking for what exactly that "essence" was -- what were the distinguishing characteristics of the person and the life they led? To write a good obituary, a journalist has to research the life of the deceased and decide what one or two aspects of their life to focus on.

In hard news a journalist reports the facts and the story tells itself. When writing an obituary, journalits have to decide what the story should be.