Margalit Fox: evaluation

Transcript context

…Take his obituary. Was a version of that written in advance because you were thinking, “My goodness, the lawn flamingo. That fellow has to pass on sooner or later. We’re going to be ready”? Or is there some other process through which you learned of his passing, maybe a local paper or a wire? In his case, it was the latter. And I believe it was both a local paper and the wire. It is indeed the case that obits for many of these major historical figures — presidents, Supreme Court justices, members of Congress, old-time silver screen stars — those are indeed written in advance. The selection criterion is: Does this person have a life that — it was so long in the public eye, so rich, so complex, and so deeply documented that we wouldn’t want to get caught short writing his or her obit on deadline? Of course, very often we do because we’re a small department, and things happen. People die suddenly.…

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