Monday, July 6, 2009

While you may laugh at the comics page, you can learn from the obituaries

I have been reading newspapers just about all my life.

I recall poring over the sports pages of the New York Times, memorizing batting averages (how did Alex Johnson with the Angels win the 1970 AL batting title with a .329 average, and why do I still remember that nugget?) before I reached 10.

And at the same time, I leafed through sections other than sports to read the obituaries.

Back then only famous dead people were recognized. The mainstream papers are a little more democratic these days, and just about anyone with a life story, or with a good cub reporter on your tail, or corpse, is profiled. And this is all a good thing, for any number of reasons.

From Aunt Millie being recognized for raising a brood of kids, and being patient with her husband, and moving about the world every few years in response to her family’s every changing employment, or the sad story of a death way too soon, even on to the 1000 word pieces on celebrated figures from history, sports, and the arts.

Hell, just think about the attention we are giving the gloved one now in the third week following Michael Jackson’s death, and you know what I am talking about.

And every so often, something comes out from one of these obituaries that either reinforces a long forgotten memory, or a moment from history, or even just provides context to an old political fight, or a battle, or a court case.

An obituary from Sunday’s Washington Post provides a wonderful illustration. I had never heard of William Hutchinson. Didn’t know that he was living in Honolulu in 1941, that he was an editor for one of the city’s papers that fateful December morning when the American fleet was bombed by Japanese kamikaze fighters. Didn’t know that the Honolulu Advertiser was not able to publish on Sunday, December 7, 1941, due to broken equipment. That sure must have been frustrating. Imagine having an outage today that lasts for hours, rendering us unable to post for what seems like an eternity.

But that’s not the educable moment.

Remember back to September 11, 2001. For those of us living in DC, there were widespread reports of attacks and fires and detonations all across the downtown area. Rumors abounded of an attack at the State Department, on the National Mall, and up on Capitol Hill. Of course those reports turned out to be inaccurate, but they were reported nonetheless, and amidst all the hubris and tumult, were not knocked down until mid-day, several hours after first being reported.

For those among us who think the media just got it wrong with some facts on 9/11, note what was included in William hutchinson’s obituary.

The Advertiser was finally able to publish on December 8, a full day after the Pearl Harbor attack, and several editions behind their competition, a paper that had run several EXTRAS that Sunday.

And what do you think the headline was on December 8? Japanese bomb Pearl Harbor? Thousand of Sailors Killed in Japanese Attack? Pacific Fleet targeted?

No, “Saboteurs Land Here!” was the headline for the Advertiser. Notwithstanding that no saboteurs did land in Hawai’i that day, or that the story had details that turned out to be way off.

Mistakes are often made under the pressure of crisis. We all need to continue to work to avert them, to confirm, via multiple sources, the validity of what we’re hearing, and to do what we can as journalists to avoid freaking out the public. That’s never a good thing.

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