(Re)writing history: Examining the cultural work of the obituary and journalists’ construction of a former president’s legacy

Abstract

This study provides an empirical and analytical look at how obituaries, as a relatively unexplored form of journalism, illuminate the long-term and conscious cultural work that journalists do. Through in-depth qualitative interviews with the elite political journalists who wrote and produced news obituaries for former US President George H. W. Bush, I offer a framework for understanding how journalists rewrite, and ‘recast’, drafts of history and Bush’s legacy. Results show how the obituary form, and the process involved in its creation, functions as a unique opportunity for political journalists – who have, perhaps for decades, covered a politician according to the norms of the profession – to now write about him in a way that they are keenly aware will become part of history. This research illustrates how the role of political or ‘hard-news’ journalism shifts when reporters write their final story about a president.

Journalism After Life: Obituaries as Metajournalistic Discourse

“…And indeed, Schudson (1992) notes that the obituary tends to emphasize social and cultural capital in public individuals far more than private individuals. In conversation with metajournalistic discourse, the obituaries offer the opportunity to provide historical context and explain "how we got here" (Edy, 1999, p. 80; see also Adams, 2022). That said, Edy (1999) cautions that these contexts can be reconstructed as a part of distributing information to the public: in particular, this reconstruction can tend to be positive and uplifting.…”