Wanted: curious obit writers
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In a recent column Jim George, managing editor of the Honolulu-based Pacific Business Journal, tells readers about how he tried to train a young reporter on the obit beat while working at an afternoon newspaper in the 1970s.
Obituaries were a vital part of our afternoon paper. Funeral directors would phone the obit writer and dictate information — this was before faxes and e-mail — which the reporter would turn into a story. Our afternoon newspaper would often get up to 20 obits during a morning shift. Obit writing required speed and a passion for detail and accuracy. It also was the most boring beat imaginable. Paul hated it. He had come to town to expose wrongdoing, not to be a glorified clerk. I told him to complete one week of error-free obit writing and I would move him to more exciting work. He couldn’t do it. Errors continued and his tenure on the obit beat lengthened. He blamed me. One day, about mid-morning, Paul turned in an obit about the death of a 30-year-old man. ‘What did he die of?’ I asked. ‘I don’t know,’ Paul replied. ‘Thirty-year-olds don’t die for no reason,’ I answered. ‘Find out the cause of death.’
To find out what happened next, read the rest of Jim George’s column. And let me say I don’t think this beat is at all boring. But I do agree that speed, accuracy and an eye for detail are pluses.
-- Claire Noland
