Journalism Studies

ISSN: 1461-670X (Print) 1469-9699 (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/rjos20

DEATH CAN MAKE A DIFFERENCE

Nigel Starck
To cite this article: Nigel Starck (2008) DEATH CAN MAKE A DIFFERENCE, Journalism Studies,
9:6, 911-924, DOI: 10.1080/14616700802227886
To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/14616700802227886

Published online: 11 Nov 2008.

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DEATH CAN MAKE A DIFFERENCE

A comparative study of Quality Quartet
obituary practice

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Nigel Starck

Obituary publication has experienced a remarkable revival in the British press during the past 20
years. Newspapers of quality now allocate generous column space on a daily basis, establishing
the modern obituary as a literary phenomenon of appreciable magnitude. This shared
enthusiasm, however, enjoys a varied manifestation on the pages themselves. That combined
surge in column inches, and the consequent influence on public opinion by posthumous appraisal,
has been accompanied by scholarly research into obituary publishing. Until now, however,
quantitative studies of contemporary practice within the British press have been limited in scope.
This article addresses that omission. Drawing on findings from the first large-scale study of its
type, it examines 1183 obituaries published by the quality quartet (Times, Daily Telegraph,
Guardian, Independent) over a three-month period (1 March to 31 May 2007), combined with
interviews with obituary editors and writers, to determine: style and presentation factors; subject
selection by gender and demographic description; the dominant form of reference applied in
naming each obituarys central character; contemporaneousness of publication; and the extent to
which cause of death is included in the text. In analysing the technique applied by each of these
four newspapers, this study reports the policies of their obituary editors, discusses the forces which
shape contemporary practice, and creates a platform for further scholarship within the immediate
field.
KEYWORDS

death reporting; editorial practice; instant biography; newspaper style; obituary

Ripe for Research

Obituary pages, according to a New York Times anthology (Baker, 1997, p. v),
should serve as Stimulants to . . . discovery of lifes astonishing richness, variety,
comedy, sadness, of the diverse infinitude of human imaginations it takes to make this
world. This process of discovery was itself stimulated by the Fleet Street diaspora of
the 1980s, when the British quality press experienced a physical transformation. There
was a need to fill the gift of increased space with literate composition; obituaries*as
instant biography demanding a generous measure of narrative*suited such a cause. In
the 20 years since, the four major practitioners of obituary publication have all
displayed a progressive increase in column inches. The Times now devotes at least two
pages a day, and sometimes three, to the obituary art within its Register section; the
Guardian and Independent flourish double-page spreads, handsomely illustrated, in their
Monday-to-Friday editions with a further page apiece on Saturdays; and the Daily
Telegraphs allocation frequently runs to five broadsheet columns.
The obituary has been a topic of considerable research and report since the
1970s. This activity was initially inspired by the development, as an academic discipline,
Journalism Studies, Vol. 9, No 6, 2008, 911924
ISSN 1461-670X print/1469-9699 online
2008 Taylor & Francis DOI: 10.1080/14616700802227886

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NIGEL STARCK

of media studies*particularly that element which concerns itself with gender

questions. Those early research initiatives, confined to the United States, analysed
newspaper obituaries as a means of determining if posthumous sex discrimination
existed in the mainstream press. They established that males, as obituary subjects,
significantly outnumbered females.
A broader field of enquiry was then cultivated, linking obituary content and
expression to issues of cultural identity. In the public forum, the post-1986 revival of
the obituary created widespread reaction. Journals of quality in the popular press, such
as the Economist and Time, have discussed this phenomenon. Writers of fiction have
even drawn on obituarists for plot in novel, short story, theatre and cinema; a
celebrated example of recent vintage was the film Closer (Sony Pictures, 2004), in
which Jude Law portrayed a British obituary writer. Newspapers on both sides of the
Atlantic have, in recent years, produced obituary anthologies too. Acknowledging their
healthy sales, the Observer (2002) argued that the obituaries desk had become if not
quite the sexiest part of the newspaper . . . certainly the coolest.
From a more scholarly perspective, the most ambitious study has been Ball and
Jonness Fame at Last (2000), an analysis of New York Times obituaries. Their substantial
sample (9325 obituaries in six years) was used to determine occupation and education
of the selected subjects, sex and age, length of obituary, and the recording of cause of
death. Racial emphases on obituary pages have been subjected to scholarly
consideration too, notably by Hume in Obituaries in American Culture (2000). She
noted (2000, p. 134) that the few 19th-century obituaries which did commemorate
Native Americans were included only to illustrate . . . [their] subjection and that by
the early twentieth century, when illustrating this subjection was no longer necessary,
Native Americans were all but absent from the obituary pages.
Other studies, each with the obituary at its core, have been of particular value in
establishing the newspaper obituary as a legitimate instrument of history. Pursuing this
notion in a contemporary context, Hume (2003) pointed to the enduring impact of the
New York Times obituary series Portraits of Grief, published in response to the
terrorist attacks of September 2001.
In the context of British newspapers, Bytheway and Johnson (1996) examined
images of the life course conveyed within 86 Guardian obituaries. Bullamore (2005)
considered questions of ethical conduct in the Times London Lives series dedicated
to victims of the London Transport bombings, and later (Bullamore, 2007) discussed
authorial sentiment in obituary writing. Fowlers (2007) work on the theme of collective
memory researched trends in subject selection over a 100-year period. From a sample
of 883 obituaries (printed by four British newspapers, one French, and one American in
that century), it concluded (2007, p. 4) Western obituaries continue to be oriented
particularly to the dominant discourses . . . elites, a Eurocentric location and to
masculine achievement.
As a means of extending the pattern of vigorous obituary scholarship, therefore, the
mood appears ripe for a concerted investigation into core questions of contemporary
technique as applied by the quality press in Britain. This study supplies answers in a
comparison of quantitative data and through qualitative reflections drawn from textual
content and from interviews with editors. In so doing, it provides a base for further
research into prevailing obituary practice.

DEATH CAN MAKE A DIFFERENCE

TABLE 1
Male/female subject incidence

Times
Independent
Daily Telegraph
Guardian
Lives in Brief (Times)
Other Lives (Guardian)

Male

Number
Female

Total

266
228
155
195
81
52

41
39
28
47
18
33

307
267
183
242
99
85

Percentage
Male
Female
87
85
85
81
82
61

13
15
15
19
18
39

Pages of Contrast: in Number, Style, and Design

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The Times
As Table 1 indicates, the Times*by a regular allocation of two, and sometimes
three, pages a day*published the greatest number of obituaries in the survey period:
307. In addition, it printed 99 posthumous accounts within its Lives in Brief series.1
Leaving aside those vignettes as a separate editorial exercise, Times practice requires
that its mainstream obituaries contain these features:
.

Name of the subject as the major headline, with a subsidiary headline offering a
character summary. In the instance of a military subject, for example, the Times led its
Register section of 22 May 2007 this way:
Anthony Brooks
Resourceful SOE agent whose sabotage operations hamstrung German
army movements in the Midi (Times, 2007c).
Bold photographic illustration. It is frequently the case that an image of the subject in
youth is preferred, if this suits the emphasis of the narrative. This occurred in the
Anthony Brooks obituary, as two-thirds of the storyline concentrated on his wartime
exploits.
A single-column end-piece, generally of four or five lines only, with name, post-nominal
listing of military and civil honours, demographic description, date of birth, date of
death, and age at death. Occasionally, the end-piece will also supply a cause of death.
Anonymous authorship. This has been a constant characteristic of Times obituaries,
with the exception of some personal tributes to officers who died on active service
during World War II.

The end-piece, with its summary of the lifes milestones, confers on the
unheralded writer the ability to construct a creative introduction. As for the faceless
factor itself, the obituaries editor at the Times, Ian Brunskill, has argued that this absence
of a by-line contributes to objectivity in appraisal and practicality in delivery:
An unsigned piece is much more likely to be read*and written*as an account of the
subjects life, and not of his relations with the author. There are practical merits too.
Times notices may be elaborate composites, updated over many years, sometimes by
more than one hand. The obituary of Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother, for instance,
would have needed half a dozen by-lines, some of them for writers who had
predeceased their subject by several years. (2005, p. xii)

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NIGEL STARCK

The Lives in Brief feature enables the Times to maintain a formal acknowledgment of
life stories that, according to the chief obituaries writer, Peter Davies,2 are of interest to a
niche audience rather than the general readership. That niche quality is apparent in the
papers preference for summarising such existences in fewer than 100 words. It was
noticeable, in the three months under review, that these posthumous briefs are
sometimes presented in sets. On 21 June, for example, a trio of old rugby league players
was recognised; on 5 May, the Lives in Brief curtain had been lowered on six theatrical
identities of modest fame.

The Daily Telegraph

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With longer columns than those of the tabloid Times but restricted to a defined
section of a single broadsheet page which also carries advertising, the Daily Telegraph
published 183 obituaries between 1 March and 31 May 2007. Its standard practice
demonstrates:
.

.
.

A subject name/demographic description headline construction, as in the edition of 19

May 2007:
Stanley Holden
Dancer who came to classical ballet via tap-dancing and made the roles of Widow
Simone and Dr Coppelia his own (Daily Telegraph, 2007b).
Photographic preference for images which depict subjects in their prime; the Stanley
Holden obituary carried an old illustration of his Widow Simone performance.
A standardised opening paragraph, rather than an end-piece summary. It comprises
name, report of death, age at death, and storyline summary, in this fashion: Stanley
Holden, who died at Thousand Oaks, California, on May 11 aged 79, once hoped to be a
music hall tap-dancer but rose instead to become the leading character dancer at the
Royal Ballet (Daily Telegraph, 2007b).
In company with the Times, an unshakeable commitment to anonymous authorship.

The Telegraph obituaries editor, Andrew McKie,3 finds the unsigned obituary
reassuring: I prefer the Olympian and omniscient approach. The obituaries editor sees
everything; he knows all. Mirroring Times practice, therefore, his page attempts to convey
the newspapers considered appraisal of a life lived rather than printing the declared view
of an individual writer. McKies one regret is that the Telegraph is unable to do this as often
as its like-minded competitor:
The Times has a fluctuating number of pages. If you look at this mornings, for example, I
have two people in the paper and they have six. They run [their columns] justified and
actually have a smaller typeface. They also run pictures smaller, and sometimes run
without pictures. Their obituaries are a comparable length to ours but theyre getting at
least two more every day. What Id really like is to do is lose the display advertising and
have the whole page. But, of course, the display ad brings in the money.

The Guardian
Of the quality quartet at the time of the 1980s obituary transformation, the
Guardian appeared initially to be the least enthusiastic. While the others dedicated
substantial space to obituaries from 1986, the Guardian waited until 1990. Today, however,

DEATH CAN MAKE A DIFFERENCE

its commitment is demonstrable in both word and image. It published 242 obituaries in
the survey period; another 85 appeared as Other Lives.
There is repeated evidence, in assessing this newspapers performance, that it exerts
the strongest visual impact of the four publications under review. Contemporary Guardian
obituaries treatment involves a two-page spread with:
.

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.
.
.

A subject name/demographic description headline construction, accompanied by

generous white space, as occurred on 5 March 2007:
Julia Casterton
Poet, reviewer, writer and teacher at the City Lit in London (Wandor, 2007).
Dramatic photographic selection, often in colour and not necessarily limited to a facial
image of the subject; obituaries of artists, in particular, are illustrated by bold
representations of their work.
A brief italicised end-piece encompassing the subjects name, demographic description,
date of birth, and date of death.
Statement of age at death, at an early juncture within the main text.
Author end-credit.

That passion for visual appeal has emerged from the Guardians shift, in 2005, to
Berliner format: a blend, in dimension and design, of broadsheet and tabloid characteristics. Robert White,4 the obituaries editor, has found that a consequent ability to produce
colour images on any page is mostly greatly liberating, occasionally a bit of a challenge,
and an opportunity to achieve a magazine quality on a daily basis. He concedes that
obituaries are sometimes delayed until the right design aspect comes together. White
vigorously defends the practice of identifying his obituarists by name: Its more
responsible. An unsigned piece can be put together from all sorts of sources. It sometimes
reads like that, a sort of patchwork.

The Independent
The founding obituaries editor of the Independent, James Fergusson, is acknowledged as having reshaped obituary illustration. Before his pages debut, in October 1986, a
conventional mug shot was considered enough. Fergusson changed all that, exploring
library holdings for more creative images of his subjects in life. That policy has since been
adopted elsewhere; obituary columns in Toronto, Los Angeles, and Sydney, as well as in
London, now place an emphasis on picture as well as on word. However, the Independent
itself in more recent times has practised photographic restraint; the pictorial aspect of its
obituary sections was noticeably the least liberal of the newspapers considered in this
study. Fergusson is also noted for introducing, and maintaining, a practice of identifying
his writers. The Independent published 267 examples of their work between 1 March and
31 May 2007, the second highest obituary total of the quartet under review. This strong
output reflects the newspapers greater concern, today, for biography rather than
photography. Prevailing page design is characterised by:
.

A subject name/demographic description headline construction. This avoids the intrusion

of any emotional element within the headline, a factor encountered*often to the
detriment of the obituary pages standing*in North American and Australian

915

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NIGEL STARCK
newspapers. The Independent prefers to avoid sentiment in its obituary headlines, as this
clinical rendition of 4 May 2007 suggests:

.
.

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Sir Brian Smedley

Judge in the Matrix Churchill Case (Morton, 2007).
A comparatively restrained photographic treatment.
A lengthy biographical summary presented as an italicised end-piece; in one of the more
extreme examples of this practice, the obituary of Sir Gareth Roberts, a physicist (Duff,
2007), carried an end-piece of 31 lines. Such detailed curriculum vitae construction does
place some strain upon the reader in calculating the subjects age at death, as the
Independent ignores this factor within the text of its obituaries.
Author end-credit.

James Fergusson, after more than 20 years as editor, retired in April 2007 (at a midpoint of this studys data collection period). His immediate successor, Diana Gower, has
maintained that the signed obituary can generate a healthy exchange of published
opinion:
I worked with Jamie for many years, and its inevitable that I would absorb some of his
ways of doing things. If somethings been said in a signed piece, at least its clearly
acknowledged. If other people have a different point of view, it seems fair to allow a
written response to appear on the page, as it would in any other area of the paper. The
obituary is not necessarily the final story.5

Subject Selection: Gender Comparisons

Studies of obituary subject selection in the United States and Australia, over three
decades, have identified a sustained pattern of bias towards males. Ball and Jonnes (2000,
p. 21), in their large-scale study of the New York Times over six years in the 1990s, found
that male subjects accounted for 83 per cent of the obituaries published in that time. More
than 20 years earlier, Kastenbaum et al. (1977) had reported imbalance at both the New
York Times (80 per cent male to 20 per cent female) and the Boston Globe (81 per cent to
19 per cent). A study by Moremen and Cradduck (1997) also demonstrated that males
dominated the obituary columns: New York Times (88 per cent male to 12 per cent female);
Los Angeles Times (81 per cent to 19 per cent); Miami Herald (76 per cent to 24 per cent);
Chicago Tribune (71 per cent to 29 per cent). There were similar results from an analysis of
Australian newspapers (Starck, 2004, p. 283), with the male subject incidence ranging from
a low of 72 per cent (Sydney Morning Herald) to a high of 84 per cent (Australian).
The disparity in British selection practice appears even more pronounced, on the
evidence of the March to May 2007 study. Table 1 presents the findings (with percentages
rounded).
The highest female presence was found at the Guardian: 19 per cent in its main
obituary section and at twice that incidence in Other Lives, an irregular though not
infrequent obituaries page feature that solicits reader contributions. In the three-month
survey period, the Guardian published 85 Other Lives, offering a departure from
established obituary-page patterns in terms of their subjects gender and occupation.
This initiative, according to the obituaries editor, Robert White, has provoked a positive
readership reaction: These pieces keep pouring in. Nevertheless, there is some disquiet
at the mild pejorative quality of the word other, particularly at a newspaper with an

DEATH CAN MAKE A DIFFERENCE

egalitarian agenda; for this reason, the title might undergo some massaging. A rival editor,
the Telegraphs Andrew McKie, is particularly outspoken on the point: What do they mean
by Other Lives? Does this mean somebody they wouldnt normally give the time of day to,
but theyre going to inflict them on the readers anyway?
The comparative dearth of suitably dead women for the main obituary columns is a
question that has long challenged the editors. Though the legacy of history militates
against gender equity, in that evidence of public achievement remains a critical selection
criterion, a shift is apparent:

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All I can say is that I actually try to see if I can include women on the page. They help the
look and the balance, and they certainly provide better photographs than just another
bloke in a chalk-striped suit. I have every confidence that in 20 or 30 years time therell
be so many women whove achieved prominent positions in society that it wont be a
worry to my successors. (Andrew McKie)

Demographic Selection
In filling their columns, all four members of the quality quartet shared an
enthusiasm for subjects from the performing arts (theatre and film, music and song,
broadcasting). This category dominated each newspapers top 10 demographic groupings.
The Independent was notably ardent in this regard, with 76 (28 per cent) of its 267
obituaries from the entertainment industry. Scholarship (university research and administration), authorship, sport, and politics also received significant acknowledgement.
Table 2 lists the Independents leading subject selections by demographic descriptor, from
the performing arts to medical science and civil service (in equal 10th place). Somewhat
surprisingly, it out-rated the Times*a newspaper more closely associated with establishment values*in recording lives of distinction from the private enterprise sector.
Although show business subjects also led the Times list (Table 3), their incidence
within the total of 307 obituaries was much lower there (16 per cent) than on the
Independents obituary pages. The private enterprise demographic group appeared on the
bottom rung of the Times top 10 chart; identities from scholarship, the communication
media, politics, and military life were twice as prominent.
The paper with the greater reputation for military subjects, however, is the Daily
Telegraph (where candidates for such obituaries are known, in Telegraph argot, as The
Moustaches). As Table 4 indicates, that primacy was demonstrated in the survey period:
there were 23 subjects from the armed services (out of a total of 183), comfortably
TABLE 2
Demographic selection (leading categories)*The Independent
Performing arts
Scholarship
Authorship
Sport
Politics
Private enterprise
Fine arts
Communication media
Law
Medical science; civil service

76
33
24
22
21
14
12
10
10
8 (each)

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NIGEL STARCK
TABLE 3
Demographic selection (leading categories)*The Times

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Performing arts
Scholarship
Communication media
Politics
Military
Authorship
Medical science
Sport
Civil service
Private enterprise

49
27
25
24
23
19
15
15
14
13

sufficient for the category to achieve second place in the Telegraph list. This measure of
military authority can be attributed to a platoon of expert contributors: three retired
officers (navy, army, air force) plus a former Colour Sergeant of the Irish Guards who
specialises in obituaries of other ranks. He maintains productive contacts among the
Chelsea Pensioners.
The Guardians concern for illustration was reflected in its high incidence of
subjects that traditionally generate graphic visual images: the performing arts, the
communication media, and the fine arts (painting, sculpture, photography, fashion
design). Entertainment industry life stories (63) accounted for more than a quarter of
the 242 obituaries. As Table 5 shows, the Guardian is content to cede the military
category to the Telegraph and Times, printing just eight from this demographic group.
(The Independent was even less interested; of its 267 obituaries, only four were of a
military character.) The obituaries editor of the Guardian offers a candid explanation on
the point, citing a perceived lack of reader interest and an admission that the expertise
lies elsewhere: Because the Telegraph is so strong in military obituaries, its not worth
our while competing (Robert White).
At the foot of the numerical scale, there were solitary obituaries of a rock climber
(Independent), a UFO believer (Daily Telegraph), a diver (Guardian), and a barber to the
gentry (Times). From the last of those instances, there emerges an engaging aspect of the
obituary page selection process: those who are touched by fame. In another eminently
readable demonstration of this criterion, both the Times and the Telegraph gave generous
play to the life of Margaret Sutherland, who died in April 2007 at the age of 98. In her
TABLE 4
Demographic selection (leading categories)*Daily Telegraph
Performing arts
Military
Scholarship
Private enterprise
Sport
Authorship
Politics
Medical science
Religion
Communication media

32
23
16
14
13
12
11
9
8
7

DEATH CAN MAKE A DIFFERENCE

TABLE 5
Demographic selection (leading categories)*The Guardian

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Performing arts
Authorship
Politics
Scholarship
Communication media
Fine arts
Medical science
Sport
Military
Private enterprise

63
22
21
18
17
15
12
11
8
7

youth, she had been a maid to Ramsay MacDonald (prime minister for two terms in the
1920s and 1930s). The Times (2007b) described her as the last survivor of the
Lossiemouth lassies, who in the 1920s left their fishing village to live in the very centre
of British politics. MacDonald, a widower of limited financial means, was required under
the custom of the day to provide his own household help. He relied on old fishermen
friends in his home town, Lossiemouth, to send their daughters to No. 10, Maggie
Sutherland therefore spent nine years at Downing Street, winning herself*70 years
later*recognition on two obituary pages in the quality press.

Delivery and Deliberation

The British obituary frequently delivers its life appraisals in a relaxed fashion,
suggesting that time and competitiveness are not necessarily driving factors in the
exercise of this art. Squadron Leader Neville Duke, a celebrated test pilot of the 1950s,
died in early April 2007; there was a touch of drama about his death as well as about
his life. At the age of 85, he had collapsed at an airfield after flying his own light
aircraft with his wife on board. The Daily Telegraph ran its obituary six days later; the
Guardian took seven days, the Times nine days. But the Independent waited 41 days. In
another such instance, the Independent responded with alacrity to the death of Herman
Brix, publishing its obituary in early March*just six days after the former film actor had
died. It was an intriguing story too; Brix had won silver in the shot putt at the 1928
Olympic Games, succeeded Johnny Weissmuller as Tarzan on screen, and lived to the
age of 100. The Times liked the narrative so much that it let it marinate for 47 days. An
indication of each newspapers concern, or otherwise, for contemporaneous publication
can be gauged from Table 6.
This willingness to indulge in occasional episodes of stately deliberation is regarded
by Robert White, at the Guardian, as being a habit unlikely to upset the audience:
The readers dont see you as being in competition with the other papers. They dont
actually care or know about whats in the other papers. Readers never say Thats old
stuff. Time isnt the imperative factor. If its not a figure that readers are expecting to
read about, then it can wait its turn until being served up really well.

Defending his willingness to condone the Daily Telegraphs 108-day delay, for an
Indian politician, Andrew McKie adds: If its still an interesting story, why not run it?

919

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NIGEL STARCK
TABLE 6
Elapsed time between date of subjects death and obituary publication
Total number of obituaries

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Times
Daily Telegraph
Guardian
Independent

307
183
242
267

Obituaries published
within 7 days 8 28 days 29 days or more

103
86
79
68

(34%)
(47%)
(33%)
(25%)

121
67
86
178

(40%)
(37%)
(36%)
(67%)

83
30
77
21

(27%)*
(16%)
(32%)*
(8%)

*Rounded percentages: total more than 100%.

On five occasions, the Times published an obituary more than 70 days old; the oldest was 77 days.
On two occasions, the Telegraph published an obituary more than 80 days old; the oldest was 108
days.
On three occasions, the Guardian published an obituary more than 100 days old; the oldest was
118 days.
On three occasions, the Independent published an obituary more than 90 days old; the oldest was
107 days.

Dominant Reference
Just as the obituaries page allows some departures from the urgency of daily
journalism, so too does it at times permit deviations from house style. This is particularly
the case in the form chosen for in-text naming references to an obituarys central
character. The Guardian (2007) decrees in its style guide that honorifics can be omitted in
certain circumstances and that writers should use surnames only after first mention . . .
for the dead. On its obituaries page, the Guardian*in common with other members of
the quality quartet*always omits honorifics; it displays a less predictable pattern of
subject reference in other respects, however. In its 242 obituaries published during the
three-month survey period, the Guardian applied the following variations in the dominant
form of reference: surname only 184; given name only 56; both names 2. Robert White says
that he is guided by the choice of the individual writer.
At the Daily Telegraph, a chivalrous variation on this practice occurs. In its 183
obituaries, the Telegraphs dominant reference was applied as follows: surname only 155;
both names 24; given name 4. Those both names and given name applications were
restricted to female subjects, for the Telegraph cannot bring itself to use a surname only
construction for womens obituaries:
Yes, we do reproduce womens names in full. It looks discourteous to call a woman by
her surname [only]. I dont know why I think it looks blunt and brutal, but I do. It may
seem patronising and old-fashioned, but its the way we do it. I just think its a question
of gut instinct. It seems less rude. (Andrew McKie)

Accordingly, a female solicitor who had once been wrongfully convicted of murder
was referred to 11 times as Sally Clark, after the first mention, in her Daily Telegraph
obituary of 19 March (2007a). On the Times page the same day (2007a), she was Clark
seven times; her given name was used only at the first mention and to differentiate her
from juxtapositioned textual references to her husband. Peter Davies, chief obituaries
writer at the Times, finds the Telegraph approach endearingly antiquated: There used to

DEATH CAN MAKE A DIFFERENCE

be a feeling here that it was slightly unchivalrous to call a woman by her surname, but we
got over that barrier. Its fairly Jurassic Park. A more uniform application of style,
therefore, is encountered on the obituary pages of the Times, and of the Independent, with
these results:
.
.

Times: surname only 301; given name only 3; pronoun 2; both names 1.
Independent: surname only 256; given name only 5; both names 5; pronoun 1.

The characteristics of Lives in Brief (on the Times page) and Other Lives (at the
Guardian) impose their own variations in dominant reference:

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.
.

Lives in Brief: pronoun 63; surname only 35; both names 1.

Other Lives: given name only 71; pronoun 8; surname only 5; nickname 1.

The Lives in Brief and Other Lives counts are explained by, respectively, the
compact nature of the Times feature and the informality of the Guardians reader
contributions. The nature of Other Lives also supplies a strand of personal reminiscence
and subjectivity which owes more to the eulogy than the classic obituary in mood. This
collection of tributes, in remembrance of relatives and acquaintances, demonstrates a
noted polarity of practice when compared with the unsigned varietys measured
delivery.

Cause of Death
There were marked contrasts in specifying the cause of death. Of the four papers
under review, the Guardian and the Times displayed some appreciable commitment to its
inclusion; the Daily Telegraph and the Independent largely ignored it. Table 7 presents the
incidence (with percentages rounded), ranging from a high of 33 per cent (Guardian) to a
low of 7 per cent (Independent).
In seeking and in disregarding cause of death, house conventions are observed.
At the Guardian, the most determined seeker among this newspaper quartet, an age
factor applies: We take the view that in obituaries of people up to the age of 70,
readers want to know the cause. If its available, theres no reason not to print it
(Robert White).
This level of interest is apparent too in the Other Lives obituaries: as Table 7 indicates,
nearly a third of these Guardian reader-authors included cause. A similar incidence is found
at the Times, where cause is pursued if the subject is under 80. Until recently, that age limit
TABLE 7
Cause of death specified: incidence of inclusion
Total

Guardian
Times
Daily Telegraph
Independent
Other Lives (Guardian)
Lives in Brief (Times)

242
307
183
267
85
99

Cause specified
79
94
20
19
24
24

(33%)
(31%)
(11%)
(7%)
(28%)
(24%)

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NIGEL STARCK

was set at 70, but has been revised owing to increased longevity within society in general
(Peter Davies).
At the Daily Telegraph, the question is answered if it establishes a relevant point
within the obituarys narrative:

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If it comes into the story and its germane, we put it in. But frankly, I dont think it
generally comes into the story for anyone over the age of 70 unless they had struggled
with illness for the last dozen or so years of life and it had greatly affected the way they
lived. (Andrew McKie)

In recording that view, the Daily Telegraph obituaries editor is observing an

entrenched policy of his newspaper. During this three-month survey, the Telegraph
included cause of death in 20 (11 per cent) of its 183 published accounts. This degree of
disinclination is similar to that found in The Very Best of The Daily Telegraph Books of
Obituaries, an anthology compiled by Hugh Massingberd (2001a), who edited the page
from 1986 until 1994. Of the anthologys 100 reprinted obituaries, originally published
between 1987 and 1999, just nine supply information on the cause of death; in six of those
it is clearly stated and in the other three a cause is implied.
Precedence rules, for the moment, at the Independent too. James Fergusson, as
obituaries editor from 1986 until April 2007, always preferred to omit any reference to
cause unless it formed an integral element of the portrait overall, as in the case of a
mountaineer falling off a cliff (Starck, 2004, p. 200). In his own dissertation on the topic, he
has argued that the fact of death should simply be seen as the occasion for an obituary;
the cue for publishing a small biography (Fergusson, 2000, p. 158). With this shibboleth,
and its legacy, in place for much of the March to May 2007 review, the Independent
included a cause of death in only 19 (7 per cent) of its 267 obituaries. Nevertheless, Diana
Gower has conceded that editorial policy in this regard does not necessarily coincide with
the natural curiosity of readers:
Its an old argument; what we are writing about is life rather than death. But readers do
seem to be interested to find out the cause. Were open to suggestions*so I wouldnt
rule out some sort of a change.

British practice in this respect is notably different from that pursued in the American
press. Ball and Jonnes (2000), p. 16) found that the New York Times had identified cause of
death in 6234 instances (67 per cent) of the 9325 obituaries they analysed over a six-year
period. The British model is not so revealing, warned off perhaps by a late 1980s incident
at the Daily Telegraph. When the editorial regime of the day tried to encourage a greater
measure of explicit disclosure in this respect, the obituaries desk responded by
demonstrating the potential for peril it might occasion:
An injunction arrived from on high that we were to make a point of including the cause
of death. As it happened, a candidate for the morgue of the morrow, a priapic jazzer, had
handed in his dinner pail after a penile implant had unfortunately exploded. We duly
complied with the editorial diktat. (Massingberd, 2001b)

Restraint has been practised by the Daily Telegraph, and (to varying degrees) its
fellow members of the quality quartet, ever since.

DEATH CAN MAKE A DIFFERENCE

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Conclusions
This study, the first quantitative assessment of any significant dimension in
contemporary British obituary publishing, has identified preferences and prejudices in
editorial practice. Both the Times and the Daily Telegraph adhere resolutely to a policy of
uncredited authorship, defending it on grounds of practicality and editorial integrity. The
Independent and the Guardian, by way of contrast, proclaim the virtues of author credits.
The Guardian goes further in this regard, encouraging readers to submit obituaries of
family and friends to a regular feature entitled Other Lives. The names of those amateur
contributors are published. Obituary columns also demonstrate some in-house diversity.
There are departures from proclaimed house style and, often, an apparently haphazard
approach in naming the obituarys central character. At the Guardian, there is a willingness
to use the subjects given name, if that is the choice of the contributing writer; at the Daily
Telegraph, female subjects are consistently accorded both given name and surname. It
would be rude and brutal, says the Telegraph, to do otherwise. There is deviation from
standard journalism behaviour too in story germination: gaps of a month between date of
death and date of obituary are not uncommon. Photographic selection provides another
instance of the obituarys divergence from conventional practice encountered on the news
pages; antiquity of image, rather than topicality, is frequently preferred*particularly when
narrative and character study are driven by events long past. There appears to be a
shortage of suitable female candidates for obituary pages across the quality quartet. In
line with studies conducted in the United States and Australia over the past 30 years, the
four newspapers under review displayed a pronounced bias towards male subjects.
Performance in this area ranges downward from the Guardian (19 per cent female
subjects) to the Times (13 per cent). It grows substantially, however, in the Guardians
Other Lives section, which relies on reader contributions; this suggests that readers at large
might welcome a redress of the gender imbalance. The obituaries editor at the Daily
Telegraph sees such a change as axiomatic, given the societal shift in womens professional
callings. Cause of death was pursued, as an element of this exercise in instant biography,
with marked differences in enthusiasm. Its inclusion factor ranged from 33 per cent
(Guardian) to 7 per cent (Independent), demonstrating perhaps that*in Britains quality
press*the obituary is generally much more concerned with life than with death.

NOTES
1.

2.
3.
4.
5.

As far as style of obituary presentation is concerned, those abbreviated accounts from

the Times (along with Other Lives, published by the Guardian) are not compared in detail
here with the practices adopted by rival newspapers. However, statistical findings
relating to Lives in Brief and Other Lives do appear within this studys overall quantitative
comparisons.
Peter Davies, Times, interview with the author, 4 October 2007.
Andrew McKie, Daily Telegraph, interview with the author, 18 September 2007.
Robert White, Guardian, interview with the author, 17 September 2007.
Diana Gower, Independent, interview with the author, 3 October 2007.

923

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NIGEL STARCK

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BALL, JOHN

Nigel Starck, School of Communication, University of South Australia, GPO Box 2471,
Adelaide, 5001, Australia. E-mail: nigel.starck@unisa.edu.au