Obit watch: September 26, 2019.

Jacques Chirac est mort. NYT.

NYT obit for Sid Haig, which is dated the 23rd but didn’t show up on their obit page until yesterday.

One I’ve been meaning to note all week: Mark von Hagen. You probably haven’t heard of him, but: he was the guy the NYT hired to determine if the paper should return Walter Duranty’s Pulitzer.

Professor von Hagen’s resulting eight-page report was highly critical of the coverage but made no recommendation about the prize. Only in interviews after the report was released did he suggest that the award be revoked because of what he described as Mr. Duranty’s “uncritical acceptance of the Soviet self-justification for its cruel and wasteful regime.” In his view, he said, Mr. Duranty had fallen “under Stalin’s spell.”
“He really was kind of a disgrace in the history of The New York Times,” Professor von Hagen was quoted as saying.
In the end, however, the Pulitzer board decided that it did not have enough grounds to annul the award, which was bestowed in 1932.

2 Responses to “Obit watch: September 26, 2019.”

  1. Borepatch says:

    There was a great photo of Chirac kissing Laura Bush’s hand, back in the day.