[quote name='dafoomie']Yeah but in the context of having a template made up for your death, it seems a little premature. Which was my original point, that they probably have most of the really old people covered so they've moved to people who are less likely to die soon, but maybe 5 years down the road.
My wording there doesn't make much sense btw. Oh look, its 6am.[/quote]
By small coincidence, I'm currently reading a Carl Hiaasen novel, Basket Case, whose main character and narrator is a reporter who has been subjected to internal exile at his paper, writing obituaries. A lot of newspaper writers have to do this early on as part of paying their dues in the grunt work trenches. I had a friend who spent the better part of a year at the LA Times writing obituary boilerplate for virtually any recognizable name, not just those regarded as being at risk. All it takes is one car running a stop light and a young healthy celebrity can be killed as readily as any of us.
This material can come in handy for other situations where a quick biographical background may be needed. If the person is embroiled in a breaking scandal, for instance. Databases are easily maintained and hard drive space is cheap so it's of value to major papers, especially those in big assemblages like Gannett or Times Mirror, to have all of this at hand. More recently Google has given this power to everyone but that is fairly recent compared to how long the newsmedia industry has been at the task.
The task is easiest with elderly celebrities, of course, especially those who haven't done anything of note recently. The downside is they also tend to be in the, "I thought that guy died a long time ago," category. So the younger and more active celebrities require more work to keep their bios current but the payoff is also greater when that data comes into use.
My wording there doesn't make much sense btw. Oh look, its 6am.[/quote]
By small coincidence, I'm currently reading a Carl Hiaasen novel, Basket Case, whose main character and narrator is a reporter who has been subjected to internal exile at his paper, writing obituaries. A lot of newspaper writers have to do this early on as part of paying their dues in the grunt work trenches. I had a friend who spent the better part of a year at the LA Times writing obituary boilerplate for virtually any recognizable name, not just those regarded as being at risk. All it takes is one car running a stop light and a young healthy celebrity can be killed as readily as any of us.
This material can come in handy for other situations where a quick biographical background may be needed. If the person is embroiled in a breaking scandal, for instance. Databases are easily maintained and hard drive space is cheap so it's of value to major papers, especially those in big assemblages like Gannett or Times Mirror, to have all of this at hand. More recently Google has given this power to everyone but that is fairly recent compared to how long the newsmedia industry has been at the task.
The task is easiest with elderly celebrities, of course, especially those who haven't done anything of note recently. The downside is they also tend to be in the, "I thought that guy died a long time ago," category. So the younger and more active celebrities require more work to keep their bios current but the payoff is also greater when that data comes into use.
ing sucks.
