Dead People blog????

Okay, so I know that if... IF I ever chose to go to work for a newspaper... I would have to go in as an entry level worker. This means I would have to write menial things like obituaries. And yet... when I opened up the book looking for chapter 10, I was speechless. An entire chapter devoted to writing about the death of other people. Not only morbid, but a little weird. I was in shock for about a minute, then told my roommate, then double checked my syllabus. Oh yes, this is indeed the chapter I should be reading. Let us begin.

Part one: Crafting a lead: "Oh how he loved to laugh" -- look up Patton Oswalt's joke about this, it's way better than part one. Anyway, it says to basically write about the main facts of the story. And by story I mean death. Again -- weird. Important information does go into this part, though, like about the funeral services. Another little sidebar they have here is basically just to double check all of the information. It would be pretty horrible to spell the deceased's name wrong and get angry calls from the the guy saying he's not dead. Anyway, it seems pretty creepy and odd to craft a lead about a dead person I never met, so i'm going to stop there.
Part two: Choosing your words. This makes perfect sense. Use few euphemisms and avoid sensitive topics. Someone, for example, didn't "give up after a long fight cancer"... they "fought the whole way."

Apparently, there's a form for "obits" that are conveniently inaccurate and not complete. These, I guess, are good forms of information. Also, thorough research does for a better obit. But I would feel weird looking into a person's life that I had never met, because how much information can be interesting or even accurate? And I am definitely not talking to people's family members because that's a whole new form of creepy. It's not that I won't call strangers, because I definitely could. It's the weird factor that comes into play when I am a stranger calling about someone's recently deceased mother.
This goes to the section called "interviewing family and friends". I am not doing it.

Sidebar: The lady who enjoys "bringing life to obituaries". Weird. I have never known anyone to make their living off of obits. Shouldn't she be gaining in her career and maybe become an actual reporter? In order to give someone a voice or an "essence" they could probably do better by being alive. I'm just saying.
And then, after the whole thing is written... you've contacted the family and had an awkward conversation, you looked into an old lady's past and her cats' names... what happens? The newspaper cuts half of it. Policy dictates what goes into each one. Meaning? Meaning if they committed suicide... don't write that. If they write about donations or flowers... lobbyists pop up? What???
Last but (oh my goodness) not least... don't include embarrassing information. Wow. Yes please? If I pop open an obituary that tells everyone that my favorite show was Rock of Love with Bret Michaels... I'd faint immediately.

I read a book once that took place in the 1950s. A young woman getting into the newspaper biz moved to Miami, only to find that her job was just to take care of the obits. She eventually rose up and got a beat, but this didn't make the newspaper business look any better to me. I read the book and took from it that I never want to work for a newspaper. I don't like to write news. Or about dead people.