The Dagley Dagley Daily

By Janet Dagley Dagley
Covering the world from the waterfront in Hoboken, New Jersey, USA

ISSN 1544-9114

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Take this news judgment and shove it...

One was a hobo, then a sailor, then a prisoner, then an escaped prisoner, then a prisoner again, then a songwriter, then a bass player, then a one-hit-wonder country singer covering someone else’s song, then bankrupt, then a killer, which made him a prisoner again, then finally a born-again Christian when he died at age 64.

The other was born into ordinary circumstances, married her childhood sweetheart (whose family happened to be one of the world’s wealthiest), was left a widow at the age most people retire and who worked for three decades more to give away the fortune she inherited as effectively as possible: establishing a museum here, a hospital there, a medical school or two (or simply helping already-existing museums, hospitals, and schools to expand and serve their communities better), endowing arts organizations, throwing holiday festivals year after year for an entire city, and serving on the boards of such prestigious international organizations as the Asia Society when she died at 95.

Only one got an obituary in The New York Times: but which one?

Sometimes you can get the wrong impression from a newspaper, even though every word, number, punctuation mark and photo it prints might be true and accurate (the same holds true for TV, radio, online and other media, and the office gossip, for that matter). Take The New York Times, for example. Its famous motto is “all the news that’s fit to print,” which is catchy but as absolutely impossible as the newsradio refrain “all the news you need to know.” There aren’t enough trees on the planet to print “all the news that’s fit” in a single 24-hour period, let alone a daily basis. And no broadcast, no publication, no method, nobody can give you “all the news you need” about anything. Most of the news gets left out. Always.

So, wrong impressions. If, like me, you are in the habit of reading the Times’s obituary section regularly, you might get the impression that the Big Apple is a particularly dangerous place for elderly white people with notable accomplishments, because such a high percentage of those whose passing is noticed are of that particular demographic group. I remember a consultant brought in by a California newspaper I worked for, who looked over a few weeks’ worth of issues and gave the editors his assessment: “Nobody’s ever born here, nobody ever dies, but they do seem to get married and divorced a lot, and if they can avoid the divorce, they might get a nice write-up for their anniversary.”

After paying the consultant’s hefty bill, the editors added birth announcements and death notices to the newspaper’s regular features. About the same time, we had another consultant who told the reporters we should all write like John McPhee. a very thorough, wordy Pulitzer-Prize-winning writer for The New Yorker magazine. I like McPhee’s work, but that particular suggestion brought back memories of my first day as a reporter when an editor took the story I’d written — the roll of newsprint it was typed on was longer than I am tall — and literally ripped off the bottom half and threw it away. I don’t know if McPhee could survive in an environment like that.

So which life earned a Times obituary?

No, not Virginia Kettering. Even though more than two dozen North American newspapers picked up and ran her obit from the AP wire’s regular roundup, “Obituaries in the News,” for some reason The New York Times, which wants us all to think of it as “the newspaper of record,” found the Cinderella philanthropist beneath its notice, while granting Johnny “Take This Job and Shove It” Paycheck a two-web-pages-plus-photo sendoff.

Perhaps it was just an oversight, you might think. I did: that’s why I e-mailed them, called them, even dug out an envelope and stamp and mailed them a letter about it. That’s exactly what I did last year when they failed to note the passing of my old friend Gene Goltz, winner of two Pulitzer Prizes and numerous national awards and the only person who ever got away with calling me a “wench.” The Times finally did run an obit for Goltz, staff-written at that, and I’m still hoping they’ll reconsider this one, too.

Their phone recording said they might react in some way if I wasn’t contacting them as part of an organized campaign. So if you decide to write to nytnews@nytimes.com or call 1-888-NYT-NEWS or send a letter to:
The New York Times
229 W. 43rd St.
New York, NY 10036
then please do so in a disorganized way so they won’t ignore you.

So who wrote Johnny Paycheck’s hit “Take This Job and Shove It?”
The first person to e-mail me at janetdd@optonline.net with the correct answer will win a free copy of the Bohemian Hillbillies CD Once Removed, plus the glory of being mentioned here.

posted by Janet Dagley Dagley @5:34 PM

24.2.03