Thursday, August 10

obituary written by dead journalist

Newspapers write their obituaries for famous people ahead of time, so they have ready-to-go, detailed and accurate obituaries, rather than having to slap something together at the last minute. It's understandable, if a bit morbid.

But utnil today I'd never heard of an obituary for a dead person written by another dead person.

In today's New York Times, there's an obituary of space scientist James Van Allen, written by Walter Sullivan. The writer's name rang a bell, and I looked down at the bottom of the article to see if it said who he is. I found there, "Walter Sullivan, science editor of The New York Times, died in 1996."

The obituary, stored in waiting, outlived its author! By 10 years!

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