Rumors of Vice President Dick Cheney’s death are greatly exaggerated. The same goes for the Pope, Bob Hope, and several other people whose premature obituaries were discovered on CNN’s website on Wednesday.
“Canned obituaries,” written about famous people while they’re still alive, are a standard practice in journalism. But CNN had accidentally made them publicly accessible, and the fine folks at Fark.com noticed. The Smoking Gun managed to quickly capture seven screenshots before CNN yanked the pages from public view.
In the case of the Gerald Ford obit, above, a certain Dana Carvey skit comes to mind. (For a full transcript of that skit, click here and scroll about two-thirds of the way down the page, to Robotninja’s post at 04-16-03 07:18:07 PM.)
Then there’s Hope, who will turn 100 next month.
But perhaps the most jarring is the obit of the very-much-alive Cheney, who is eulogized as the “loyal point man for two Bush presidencies.”
Hmm… can you say liberal bias? Gerald Ford, Dick Cheney, Ronald Reagan… look at all the Republicans that CNN wants dead!!! Hehe.
Naturally, headline writers everywhere had a ball with this. Australia’s News Interactive wrote: And this just in: Pope not dead. The Scotsman declared: CNN makes a deadly mistake. Britain’s The Register quipped: CNN kills Castro early. CNET News states: CNN postings send some to early graves.
There’s nothing to be found about this on CNN’s web site now, but the Associated Press reports that CNN says “human error” is to blame.
Fark, which started this whole thing, now has a wonderful bunch of fake obits modeled on CNN’s pre-obits. A couple of good ones, below, for South Park’s Kenny and for CNN itself:
See also obits of Osama Bin Laden, Jacques Chirac, Peter Arnett, Pat Robertson, Michael Moore, Wil Wheaton, William Jefferson Clinton (”Life is like a box of cigars”), Scruples (”Destroyed by Fox News”), The Constitution, and Hollywood’s Last Idea.
April 19th, 2003 at 9:36:12 am
HAR HAR HAR! CNN rats itself out. / “Hmm… can you say liberal bias? Gerald Ford, Dick Cheney, Ronald Reagan… look at all the Republicans that CNN wants dead!!! Hehe.” Cripes, ol’ Kiddoe, you really *are* listing to starboard, ain’tcha? :) Is it CNN’s fault that a lot of prominent conservatives are either Old or Sick? Or Both? :) BTW you left out that Bob Hope is also a bigfat Republican.
At, shall we say, a more specialized level of fame, a few years ago a NJ radio station erroneously broadcast news of the demise of renowned (OKOK, to some) Irish balladeer Liam Clancy (of the old Clancy Bros. & Tommy Makem). Word raced through the Irish & Irish-diaspora community (the ‘Mick street’, y’know), and Clancy’s website (www.liamclancy.com, since you asked:) was inundated with messages of grief and condolence from folkmusic fans around the world. Liam subsequently reported that he had hugely enjoyed reading all the glowing tributes to him. (His cousin Robbie O’Connell phoned him from far Americay and asked ‘So, how are they all doing down in Hell?’) For further information on Liam Clancy see his fine autobiography, curiously entitled “The Mountain of the Women”. Evidently there’s life in the ould boyo yet. :)
April 19th, 2003 at 10:23:57 pm
I was just kidding about the whole CNN-wants-Republicans-dead thing. Really, I was trying to satirize the right-wingers who might actually conclude that.
I will say, however, that certain prominent Democratic ex-presidents are also rather Sick, though perhaps not in the sense that you meant… :)
June 26th, 2003 at 8:17:44 pm
Whoops, this is for real:
Strom Thurmond dies at age 100