A Veteran Journalist on Why the ‘Art of the Obit’ Is Alive and Well

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That obit, and more than 1,600 others, was penned by Sam Roberts ’68. The Arts & Sciences alum and former Daily Sun managing editor has been on the paper’s obituary desk for more than a decade.

Now, he has written a memoir about his beat, cheekily titled Are They Dead Yet?: The Art of the Obit.

Booklist calls it “lively, entertaining, deeply perceptive, and occasionally very funny” and “one of those books that gives us a new appreciation and greater understanding of something we thought we already knew”; Kirkus lauds it as a “brisk, witty look at writing about the dead.”

Booklist calls Are They Dead Yet? “lively, entertaining, deeply perceptive, and occasionally very funny” and “one of those books that gives us a new appreciation and greater understanding of something we thought we already knew.”

Published by Bloomsbury, the volume not only takes readers behind the scenes of how the nation’s “paper of record” decides whom to cover out of the roughly 150,000 humans who pass away on an average day, but parses some of the obits bearing Roberts’s byline and traces the history of the obituary as a journalistic form.

“It’s about people’s lives; death is mentioned in one sentence, in one paragraph,” he says. “In effect, these are mini biographies that explain why certain people were transformative, why they are intrinsically interesting, and what lessons we can learn from their lives.”

While Roberts has written about his share of bold-faced names, his byline isn’t generally found on obits of superstars or heads of state; rather, he tends to tell of lives lived not entirely out of the media spotlight, but less in its relentless glare.

In effect, these are mini biographies that explain why certain people were transformative, why they are intrinsically interesting, and what lessons we can learn from their lives.

A sampling of headlines: “Lewis Berman, Veterinarian to the Stars, Is Dead at 90”; “Brigitte Gerney, ‘Crane Lady’ Who Survived Collapse, Dies at 85”; “Si Spiegel, War Hero Who Modernized Christmas Trees, Dies at 99”; “Stew Leonard Sr. Dies at 93; Founded ‘Disneyland of Dairy Stores.’”

Roberts has even covered the passings of some fellow Cornellians.

As part of the Times’ “Overlooked No More” series—which aims to offset the fact that the lion’s share of its obits have historically gone to white men—Roberts penned a belated tribute to Ruth Wakefield, inventor of the Toll House Cookie, who passed away in 1977.

Then there was his 2022 obit on the creator of a product familiar to many a beachgoer.

“Ron Rice, a high school chemistry teacher who had been trained to explore for oil, but who instead made a fortune by concocting coconut-laced suntan lotion in a 20-gallon garbage can in his garage and seductively branding it Hawaiian Tropic, died on May 19 in Daytona Beach,” Roberts wrote, going on to chronicle how a “dirt-poor boy from North Carolina’s Blue Ridge Mountains” made good.

Roberts has even covered the passings of some fellow Cornellians, including bestselling thriller writer Thomas Perry ’69 and psychiatrist Michael Stone ’54, MD ’58, who studied evil.

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“Mr. Rice’s 12,000-square-foot home … housed a disco and an indoor-outdoor pool. He owned an 80-foot yacht and a Lamborghini that he lent to Burt Reynolds for the film The Cannonball Run,” Roberts continued, winding up to a kicker of an ending:

“As a reminder of his roots, and a testament to his success, Mr. Rice placed in his living room the garbage can in which he had perfected the formula for Hawaiian Tropic. He had it silver plated.”

A Brooklyn native who’d long had his eye on a journalism career, Roberts majored in government in Arts & Sciences. (His obit subjects would eventually include legendary history professor Walter LaFeber.)

While in college, he spent a dismal summer working as a copyboy at the Times. “The best thing about it,” he recalls, “was I got out of my system the notion that the be-all and end-all of my career had to be working at the New York Times.”

He spent 15 years at the Daily News before moving over to the Times, where he has had various roles over the decades, including reporter, editor, and columnist.

Roberts has also published numerous books, many about NYC—among them Grand Central: How a Train Station Transformed America; A History of New York in 101 Objects; and Only in New York: An Exploration of the World’s Most Fascinating, Frustrating, and Irrepressible City.

In his latest, Roberts unpacks myriad details about obituaries, like the basic difference between a news obit and a paid death notice—a distinction that, to his amazement, even the families of prominent personages sometimes don’t grasp.

Roberts spent 15 years at the Daily News before moving over to the Times, where he has had various roles over the decades, including reporter, editor, and columnist.

For the record: the former is produced under the same guidelines as any journalism, while the latter is essentially an ad, written by whoever buys the space.

“In a paid obituary, you can put anything you want, true or not true,” Roberts explains. “In a news obituary, we try to be as honest—perhaps, sometimes brutally honest—about the person as we can, and often that rubs people the wrong way.”

In Are They Dead Yet?, Roberts describes writerly struggles with how to acknowledge missteps in otherwise worthy lives, and why it’s valid to include details that humanize even the most despicable departed, like murderers and terrorists.

As Roberts notes, out of all the Times’ coverage, obituaries generally garner the most outraged feedback—either because readers (or families) are upset about something they did or didn’t include, or because the dense biographies make them more likely to contain factual errors.

In a paid obituary, you can put anything you want, true or not true. In a news obituary, we try to be as honest—perhaps, sometimes brutally honest—about the person as we can, and often that rubs people the wrong way.

Perhaps most tantalizingly, Roberts takes a deep dive into something about which laypeople may be unaware: the established practice of writing advance obituaries.

Sometimes based on interviews with the subjects themselves, advances allow news organizations to publish a fully realized obit, complete with photos, quickly after a notable death becomes known.

“We have about 2,000 in the hopper—never enough,” Roberts says. “Someone always surprises us and dies unexpectedly.”

(All images provided, unless otherwise indicated.)

Published August 31, 2026

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