Autobit

Via Romenesko, the Philadelphia Inquirer reports how more people are writing their own newspaper obits.

The paper writes: Funeral directors, hospice workers, ministers and newspapers say they're seeing an increase in self-written obituaries, which are making their way into the organized person's "important papers" files, along with burial plans and wills.

Many people are finding that writing their own obituaries can be an inspiring experience, bringing families together. And getting their names and stories published - for most people, for the first and only time - is a commitment to posterity.

One of my first-ever assignments our freshman year at Northwestern's Medill School of Journalism required us to write our own obituary.

I got an "F."

Medill has a very strict grading policy: You get a fact wrong, any fact, and it's an automatic fail.

And it was a careless mistake. I wrote that "Schneider had received a scholarship from the Hawaii chapter of the Society for Professional Journalists."

Oops. As I should have doublechecked, it's called the "Society of Professional Journalists." Hence the "F." But throughout my four years at Medill, I'm proud to say it wound up being the only "F" that I ever received.