It can be a harrowing experience, Whitman knows, requiring that the writer become an instant historian, assessing in a few hours the dead man’s life with lucidity, accuracy, and objectivity.
Gay Talese believes “Mr. Bad News” is one of the best pieces he ever wrote. Talese wrote the profile on New York Times obituary writer Alden Whitman for Esquire in 1966.
The essay was just republished in Longform, accompanied by a podcast featuring Talese himself talking about that story and many others.
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