Obituaries and Censorship
Obituaries serve as published accounts honoring individuals who have recently passed away, typically detailing their name, age, circumstances of death, and significant life achievements. While obituaries offer a way to commemorate the deceased, they often gloss over unpleasant details or controversial aspects of their lives. The format of obituaries generally includes a death story, a funeral story, and a biography, but the content can be subject to censorship. Under authoritarian regimes, the deaths of political opponents may be obscured or misrepresented, as seen in the case of German field marshal Erwin Rommel, whose suicide was publicly depicted as a natural death.
Censorship can also occur in democratic contexts, particularly during wartime or in response to government incompetence, as seen in the regulations established by the World War II Office of Censorship. Even in peacetime, obituaries may omit sensitive information, such as embarrassing causes of death or affiliations with unpopular groups, often to uphold decorum or avoid distress. Instances of censorship can arise from various motivations, including protecting reputations, preventing misinformation, or aligning with industry interests. Overall, the interplay between memorialization and censorship in obituaries reflects broader societal attitudes toward death, privacy, and the complexities of individual legacies.
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Obituaries and Censorship
DEFINITION: Published accounts of persons who have recently died
SIGNIFICANCE: Obituaries have frequently avoided unpleasant aspects of a person’s life and death
American newspapers’ obituary stories, usually written by cub reporters, contain three parts. First is the death story, which includes the deceased’s name, age, time, date, place of death, cause of death, duration of last illness, address, professional and personal background, survivors, and funeral arrangements. Second, the funeral story adds such items as the name of the person conducting the funeral, special music, organizations participating, kind of service, official recognition, special tributes, bearers, place of burial, and miscellaneous information. Last, the deceased’s biography includes career, achievements, and comments of associates and friends.
Total or partial censorship of obituaries is common practice under authoritarian and totalitarian governments. Deaths and executions of political opponents in prisons or concentration camps are usually hidden. Sometimes, as in the case of the death of German field marshal Erwin Rommel, the cause of death may be distorted. Rommel, a brilliant general, served Adolf Hitler in World War II, but became convinced by Hitler’s delusional commands that Hitler was leading Germany to ruin. Rommel took part in a conspiracy to replace Hitler. When an assassination attempt (which Rommel had not endorsed) uncovered the conspiracy, Rommel was told to commit suicide or face trial. With the promise that his family would not be mistreated if he chose suicide, he took poison. Since he was a national hero, his death was attributed to a hemorrhage resulting from war wounds. In 2018, Serbian art director Darko Novaković's obituary was censored because it mentioned his controversial book criticizing Serbian President Aleksandar Vučić for his censorship policies.
Censorship has been exercised by democratic governments in wartime. The World War II Office of Censorship, for example, issued detailed rules for news media to follow. Information on combat deaths withheld from publication included the exact location, time of death, and the specific unit of service. Peacetime government censorship has sought to hide deaths caused by government incompetence. At other times, censorship aims to prevent panic by distorting the number of deaths caused by virulent diseases.
Jessica Mitford, in The American Way of Death (1963), reports censorship of obituaries. Funeral homes and the florist industry were cooperating to deny requests from families to have printed in obituaries a phrase that typically read: “In lieu of flowers, the family requests that donations be sent to” a named charity. Other allied industries may have sought the withholding of aspects of obituaries not in the interests of their industry, such as the name of the hospital in which the person died.
Newspapers informally censor through editorial policy. Reporters are taught that decorum demands suppressing the gory details of violent deaths. Suicides may be reported euphemistically. Other parts of obituaries that are sometimes omitted include an embarrassing cause of death, place of death if at such a place as a mental health institution or a brothel, past membership in unpopular organizations such as the Communist Party, criminal records, business or professional failures, previous marriages, illegitimate children, sexual orientation, or lack of religious affiliation.
Other instances of censorship have occurred for various reasons. For example, a newspaper in 2019 refused to print an obituary of a woman in Kentucky that cited President Donald Trump had hastened her “to an early grave.” Obituaries that may spread misinformation, such as falsely claiming a vaccine caused the person’s death and attempts at creating anti-abortion advertisements masked as obituaries, have also been censored or refused.
Bibliography
Censorship: The Motives for Suppression. New York Times Educational Publishing in association with the Rosen Publishing Group, Inc., 2020.
Deflem, Mathieu, and Derek M. D. Silva. Media and Law: Between Free Speech and Censorship. Emerald Publishing Limited, 2021.
Nestel, M.L. "Woman's Obituary Blaming Donald Trump for Contributing to Her Death "Censored" by Newspaper, Now Son Wants Apology." Newsweek, 18 Jan. 2019, www.newsweek.com/trump-obituary-louisville-courier-journal-frances-irene-finley-williams-art-1292822. Accessed 20 Nov. 2024.
Stojanovski, Filip. "Censorship in Serbia Hits a New Low after Newspaper ‘Edits’ an Obituary." SeenPM, 2 Mar. 2018, seenpm.org/censorship-serbia-hits-new-low-newspaper-edits-obituary. Accessed 20 Nov. 2024.