LZ Sunday Paper Newsletter: The "#WhateverDay" Edition
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Greetings, Folks,
--and Happy Daylight Savings Time!
Everyone's passing around an article about "Overlooked Women" who did not receive a New York Times obituary when they died. It was published in honor of International Women's Day. It's a fine piece of work, as it's interesting to read about early heroes and innovators and to note their major contributions. Digital Obituaries Editor Amisha Padnani says the project was "a whirlwind of excitement" after she partnered with the new Gender Editor. That's good.
A companion article, written by the Obits editor of the past 10 years or so, is truly bizarre. The headline starts with a strong defensive posture, "Why Most Obituaries Are Still Of White Men." In the piece, he details what he makes out to be a selective process with many gates to pass through:
"Like college deans of admission, we sift through the candidates, study their curriculums vitae, read their letters of reference and sort the prospects into piles (yes, no, maybe). We also do our own homework: We investigate, research and ask around before settling on our subjects."
Uh-huh. Gosh that is really a tough job to sort through thousands of dead people's credentials and decide on the mainstream ones. Bad analogy, btw, since 4-year colleges in the U.S. are *majority* female, on average, and represent 40-50% in racial and ethnic diversity. People who die, according to the NY Times? Not so much.
I wonder, I just wonder if anything else could be at play here. Hey wait, maybe I'm onto something! A while down in the piece, he apparently had a coffee break with the Gender Editor in the Times Commissary and had a quick thought!
"Conscious or unconscious bias? Could be. "
Uh-yeeehhhh-- could be. But probblynot…it's more likely that
"an editor passed for lack of interest, or maybe considered an obit but did not have a reporter available to write it. (A practical reality that bedevils us today.)"
Yup, those devilish staffing woes are to blame! It's really that these folks are mighty overworked. Yet, somehow the beleaguered deans of death admissions could squeeze in plenty of white male obits rather than a one for a person of color or a woman in their meagerly available work-time? Got it.
But hey, we'll do some catch-up and relegate the ladies' stories to a cool interactive side-bar feature for the next while…but again, seriously we're super sorry:
The Times is acknowledging that many worthy subjects were skipped for generations, for whatever reasons.
Listen-- those *whatever* reasons have nothing to do with me being the obituaries editor for the past 10 years. GOT IT? The distanced, non-apology passive voice is distracting, right? It was a bunch of nameless people not me. It can't be me cuz it's just that many worthy subjects were skipped for generations. OKAY?
And speaking of decades…lemme just 'splain to you one more time why this all happened:
"Unlike the rest of the newsroom, the obituaries desk covers the past, not the present."
Oh I didn't rea… LET ME FINISH:
"And so we are, inevitably, a generation or three behind in tracking the evolution of gender and racial dynamics, among other things."
So anyhow, in conclusion, forgive us for the next 60 years or so cuz, y'know what? This shit takes time!
But wait what's this, you ask? Why was I photographed holding a copy of the NY Times in 1980? Because in 1998, I spent the entire year compiling, daily, a record of every single obituary the Times published. At an average of about five a day, I logged the names, occupations, age, gender, and cause of death results of well over 1000 people in an Excel spreadsheet and compiled the (dismal) stats.
Later, a reporter, Abigail Pogrebin, journalist/author (then of the short-lived Brill's Content) wrote the story that this picture was taken for. This isn't even the photo that was used-- I remember one with the paper lit on fire! in a dramatic (and smoke alarm-inducing) brainstorm.
Anyway, the data showed a gross inequity in the ratio of male to female obits. I mean wildly lopsided, even given the NY Times Obit Editor's theory being that, representing only the distant past, more white men would have been in positions of power by virtue of society's norms and biases. I knew by sorting the categories of age, cause of death, profession, and number of column inches that there should have been a better ratio than 5-to-1, by 1998.
There was definitely inherent bias that statistics alone could not support. For instance there were plenty of men who passed away in their '40's and '50s, from early cancer or an accident of some sort. They were -- I apologize for phrasing it this way -- your basic lawyers or doctors or businessmen or mid-level art-industry folks of some sort. If you were 50 in 1998 you went to college and grad school in '68. It sure wasn't 50/50 but they most certainly had *some* female equivalents in most fields who deserved recognition just as much.
If what the editor says is true, then the stats should change as time passes. I actually went back into the Obits 10 years after my original deep-dive. I took a month's random sample. The stats were no different.
It kills me (pardon the expression) that the Obit Editor article cites no data as to how the %'s have changed during the decade of his tenure. FHI (for his info) as recently as December 2017, a brilliant production designer (and friend,) Therese DePrez, 52, died. Apparently she did not merit a NYTimes Obit. A simple scan--again I'm sorry, I'm sure they meant a lot to many in the world--yields scores of similarly accomplished men in 2017.
I'm sorry Brill's Content has no digital archive that I could find. I have the mag and all the original spreadsheets in storage…I would like to revisit a then & now comparison once again. And also I'd like to see that pic with the paper aflame.
The digital archive of The LZ Sunday Paper is here. It's also where you can sign up to receive the newsletter, straight to your inbox, the digital front step onto which I throw the paper each Sunday morning.
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Set your clocks ahead if you haven't already!
LZ
THE PIC(K) OF THE WEEK:
McDonald's Is Flipping Its Iconic Arches Upside Down In An Unprecedented Statement via Business Insider
The Problem With Johnnie Walker's Jane Walker Scotch Was Perception via Entrepreneur
International Women's Day: Drowning In Corporate Guff via The Financial Times
NEWS, POLITICS, BUSINESS:
How We'll Win: 50 Visionary Women via Quartz
Kamala Harris Keeps 'em Guessing via Politico
How 'Diet Madison Avenue' Is Putting Alleged Sexual Predators In The Ad Industry On Blast via Refinery29
Bill Cosby's Attorney Says '#MeToo' Accusations Will Enrage Jury via The Daily Beast
How To Lose Your Job From Harassment In 33 Easy Steps via The Atlantic
CAMPUS CLIMATE:
A College Student Was Found Not Guilty In A Rare Campus Rape Trial. Here's Why The Case Is A Big Deal via BuzzFeed
ARTS, SPORTS & POP CULTURE:
She Wrote Hollywood's 'Inclusion Rider', But She Fights For Women At Walmart, Chicken Plants, and Hospitals, Too via The Washington Post
'The Bachelor' Has Destroyed A Woman, and Yes, Its Ratings Went Up via Buzzfeed
Five Women via This American Life
The Female Gaze: A Literary Edition via Penguin Random House via Five Dials
Porn, Condoms, and Consent: Talking To Boys About Sex via The Cut
The Women Who Lived At CIA via The CIA
…AND WHAT'S NOT TO LOVE ABOUT:
Michelle Obama Meets The Two-Year-Old Who Was Captivated By Her Portrait. And They Danced via The Washington Post
The LZ Sunday Paperâ„¢ launched at the dawn of 2014. We expose and recirculate interesting content that is about, and frequently by, women in business, with a dose of ultra-relevant culture. We think that culture comes high and low, not much in between. Our audience is vast and not gender-driven. Every week we expect to deliver at least one good laugh. Send suggestions, clips, or names of people you think might enjoy this to LZSundayPaper@gmail.com.
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