Robert D. McFadden (original) (raw)
Robert D. McFadden was a New York Times reporter for 63 years, accumulating more than 4,200 bylines. In the last decade before his retirement in September 2024 he was a writer of advance obituaries, which are prepared for notable people while they are still living so they can be published quickly upon their deaths. Below is the last version of his Times bio.
What I Cover
Advance obituaries, as they are known in the newsroom, are as varied as the deeds, misdeeds, triumphs, failures and accomplishments of the people who are profiled. Far from being morbid, obituaries, following a sentence to announce a death, are explorations of a life in all its aspects. Advance obituaries can run from 1,000 to 10,000 words and are held until needed. Over a decade I’ve written 750 of them — a million words — as my final assignment in a Times reporting career that started in 1961 at the age of 24.
My Background
In the six decades I’ve been at The Times, I’ve won the Pulitzer Prize for spot news reporting and 25 other major journalistic awards. For most of my Times career I was a rewrite man, a misnomer. Rewrite is the fine art of covering a big breaking news story, receiving reports from a dozen or more reporters on the scene of a plane crash or a war in the Middle East and writing the big story covering all aspects, often for the front page.
I graduated from the journalism school at the University of Wisconsin and was a reporter for The Wisconsin Rapids Daily Tribune; The Wisconsin State Journal, in Madison; and The Cincinnati Enquirer before joining The Times.
Journalistic Ethics
In accordance with fundamental ethical principles of The Times and of my profession, I strive to be accurate and fair. The obituaries I write are factually based profiles of notable people, many of whom are well-known public figures. I try to interview each subject to confirm biographical details and adduce cultural and historical contexts for their work. I also seek opinions of experts and well-informed others about a subject’s work, quoting reviews on performing and fine artists, and experts on Nobel Prize winners. Although families and friends may be deeply affected by what I write, what they all deserve is an accurate and truthful account, nothing more, nothing less. I avoid overstating positive or negative aspects of a life, and try to avoid idealizing my subjects.
Featured
CreditDonald F. Holway/The New York Times
CreditBoston Police, via Associated Press
CreditSara Barrett
CreditAssociated Press
CreditFred R. Conrad/The New York Times