According to Newsweek, Louisville Courier Journal columnist Joseph Gerth published a pre-obituary on McConnell, Kentucky's most powerful senator, arguing his legacy should be judged now rather than softened by death. Gerth accused McConnell of abandoning civil-rights principles and enabling Donald Trump despite private disdain for him.
This exposes a journalism ritual: waiting until powerful figures die to print the sharp verdict. Obituaries routinely become reputation laundries, where criticism gets muted as bad manners and inconvenient facts blur into tribute. Gerth's move breaks that pattern in McConnell's home state, where local press still carries weight to sting.
More columnists and editorial boards may adopt this format. If they do, the safe, gauzy obituary may lose its monopoly over how public memory gets written.
A pre-obit denies the cleanup operation that kicks in after death, when decency gets weaponized to police criticism and a career's hardest edges get blurred. Gerth's move says honesty before the flowers arrive is its own kind of decency. That lands harder when the subject is McConnell.
Filed to the Media desk · Jul 23