Back Off, Breathless Journalists, She Just Has the Flu
As all journalists know, newspapers don't wait for important figures to die before writing their obituaries. They commission them in advance and have them ready to go. It makes perfect sense. Death is a predictable event. We just don't know exactly when it will happen. No one needs a mad scramble in the newsroom when it does.
I've been asked to write obituaries for Margaret Thatcher, and I have. Any responsible paper would have a few at the ready; she is, after all, 85 years old and in failing health. It's still a ghoulish assignment. There's something so distasteful in viewing her death, however inevitable, as "a big job, so we need a good start in advance."
It sounds from the reports that she'll be fine. She has the flu, and she's been taken for tests as a precaution. Death and taxes are inevitable, they say, but if she fights death the way she fought taxes, I truly pity the Grim Reaper.
That she's ill nonetheless makes me uneasy--not as a journalist who's wondering whether she could fit a lot of inevitable interview requests into her busy schedule if Margaret Thatcher were to die, but as someone who genuinely loves her, even though she has never once met her, and would be very happy if those obituaries never saw the light of day.
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Jul '10
Re: Back Off, Breathless Journalists, She Just Has the Flu
My prayers are with Lady Thatcher.
Just as I feel the world is diminished by the passing of Ronald Reagan and William F. Buckley, Jr.; I feel it will be a much smaller, emptier place without her.
Re: Back Off, Breathless Journalists, She Just Has the Flu
She's still here, and as she would surely say, let's carry on working.
Aug '10
Re: Back Off, Breathless Journalists, She Just Has the Flu
In all seriousness, though, death is eventually a blessing. We do not last forever, and we would suffer unbearably in our finite bodies if we did.
Whether death opens the door to the next world or simply oblivion, death is everyman's refuge.
Jul '10
Re: Back Off, Breathless Journalists, She Just Has the Flu
Midget Faded Rattlesnake: In all seriousness, though, death is eventually a blessing. We do not last forever, and we would suffer unbearably in our finite bodies if we did.
Whether death opens the door to the next world or simply oblivion, death is everyman's refuge. · Oct 19 at 9:09pm
I'm going with next world.
In which the angels will counsel me, "Kenneth, you were at times intemperate in your expression."
To which I will say, "Well, um....um....Barney Frank!"
And the angels will reply, "We get your point."
Jul '10
Re: Back Off, Breathless Journalists, She Just Has the Flu
I will wish her peace when she is ready for peace, because peace...will involve Denis, and I want her to have that. But I want her here with me, too. She's been through this before. Every time, we're told it's the end, and...then she rebounds. Her post-premiership seems to be a mirror of her premiership that way. I get chills every time I see the headline, and I'm going to have an awful lot of trouble greeting the news with dignity when it comes, though. Five years from now. Maybe ten. She's the same age as the Queen, and didn't the Queen Mother live to be like 207? The old ladies who know what's best are very hard to bring down.
Edited on Oct 19, 2010 at 9:27pmMay '10
Re: Back Off, Breathless Journalists, She Just Has the Flu
I'm not sure how to feel about obituaries written before people die. It seems disrespectful, intentionally or not.
Why should there be a "mad scramble in the newsroom"? If the condolences are genuine, then one shouldn't feel a need to express them immediately, right? Papers shouldn't be rushing to honor her memory before others do. If there's any competitive element to it at all, then the purpose is lost.
I understand that even the person who is most saddened (perhaps, especially that person) might not be able to find the right words quickly. But a eulogy given before the pain of death is felt seems artificial.