Wikipedia:Obituaries as sources
 | This is an essay. It contains the advice or opinions of one or more Wikipedia contributors. This page is not an encyclopedia article or a Wikipedia policy, as it has not been reviewed by the community. |
Obituaries published by high-quality reliable sources are often treated as valuable sources for articles on deceased individuals, since they provide a broad overview of the subject's life. They should, however, be used with caution; they are often not intended to be neutral, but to eulogize (or, in more rare cases, actively condemn) the subject.[1][2] In this respect, they are often better treated as opinion-pieces rather than news articles; even an obituary in an extremely high-quality source that is otherwise usable for facts may only be WP:RSOPINION.[3][4]
Likewise, due to this tendency towards eulogy, obituaries may emphasize aspects of a subject's life that are not particularly significant otherwise, such as philanthropy or charitable donations. They may describe the subject as having been widely-loved, or with other comparable descriptors, as a pro forma way of eulogizing them, rather than as an accurate or precise summary of the significant aspects of their life.
While eulogies are written to summarize the subject's entire life, they are also, ultimately, only a snapshot of how people felt about them at a particular moment in time; in that respect relying too heavily on a eulogy for a recently-deceased individual may lean towards WP:RECENTISM in that it over-emphasizes the feelings and focus evoked by their death. When covering the reaction to their death is the intent, an obituary is generally a WP:PRIMARY source.
Be particularly cautious of things that are only emphasized in obituaries, and which are not given comparable emphasis in other coverage of the subject; those sorts of things may not actually be significant enough to include, especially not in an article's lead.
Paid obituaries
[edit]Paid obituaries are those that are released by private individuals. These are similar to self-published sources, in that they are generally published by people close to the subject, such as family members or friends. Similar considerations for self-published sources thus apply, particularly regarding self-published or questionable sources as sources on themselves, and they should be incorporated into articles only judiciously. Nevertheless, at times it may be appropriate to incorporate limited and noncontroversial information, such as dates and places of death, from paid obituaries.
Paid obituaries are unlikely to help establish notability for a subject. This is because notability is assessed on the basis of sources that are "independent of the subject", while paid obituaries primarily come from sources that are connected to the subject.
References
[edit]- ↑ Hume, Janice. "Write ill of the dead? Obits rarely cross that taboo as they look for the positive in people's lives". The Conversation. Retrieved April 13, 2021.
- ↑ Hume, Janice (2000). Obituaries in American Culture. Univ. Press of Mississippi. ISBN 978-1-57806-242-3 – via Google Books.
...an obituary is an idealized account of a citizen's life, a type of commemoration meant for public consumption.
- ↑ As Nigel Farndale, Obituaries Editor of The Times, has said: "...obituaries are supposed to be life–affirming, not gloomy or morbid; elegantly written short biographies that are full of colour, felicities and, where appropriate, humour" "Writing obituaries can be strangely life-affirming | the Spectator".
- ↑ Wild, Rose (20 March 2021). "Obituaries have to balance the scales of justice". www.thetimes.com. Retrieved 2025-06-20.
There's always tension between those who feel that obituaries should be eulogies or extensions of the honours system and others who want a robust and objective sense of whether the person lived a good life or bad, and whether they were right or wrong in the handling of their public affairs.