Register HERE for online session.
Getting an obituary of a loved one into the newspaper can take on the aura of a sports competition. There is no fee for running Obits in the news section, or sometimes on the front page. But there is a cost for the Death Notices. The Obits are written by reporters and the Death Notices are not.
With an estimated 1.1 million people who have died in the United States since the COVID Pandemic began in 2020, there is no shortage of subjects to write about who have died from that disease, as well as many other causes.
How do the Obit editors decide who gets this coveted space in a newspaper? What are the criteria in deciding who gets this coverage when news value, history and human interest converge in creating the art of the obituary? And what is the process whereby future Obits for famous people like politicians, sports figures and well-known individuals are written and archived long before they die—with the reporter often facing a tight deadline for creating such stories?
Come find out when two veteran journalists —Matt Schudel and Harrison Smith—will talk about the challenges of writing lively stories about the dead in the Obituary pages of The Washington Post. The free Zoom program is slated for 7 to 8:30 p. on Tuesday, March 21. The program is sponsored by the DC Chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists and is open to all. Panel moderator is Kathleen Burns, a long-time DC SPJ chapter member and organizer of the program.