NYT Fills Front Page With 1000 COVID Obituaries

The New York Times reports:

Instead of the articles, photographs or graphics that normally appear on the front page of The New York Times, on Sunday, there is just a list: a long, solemn list of people whose lives were lost to the coronavirus pandemic.

As the death toll from Covid-19 in the United States approaches 100,000, a number expected to be reached in the coming days, editors at The Times have been planning how to mark the grim milestone.

Marc Lacey, National editor, had warned Tom Bodkin, chief creative officer of The Times, that the milestone was coming. “I wanted something that people would look back on in 100 years to understand the toll of what we’re living through,” Mr. Lacey said in an email.

Hit the link for more about the front page. No paywall. Those thousand one-sentence obituaries represent only 1% of the current total.

The backstory about Sunday’s NYT Page One: @marclacey says “I wanted something that people would look back on in 100 years to understand the toll of what we’re living through.” I’m sharing the front page on @CNN with @AnaCabrera now… https://t.co/QJ253FNsk8

— Brian Stelter (@brianstelter) May 23, 2020

The NYT print front page is incredibly powerful, but they’ve also done a brilliant job of it online, too. https://t.co/dYFbXTeQ1x

— Kate Socialising Distantly Bevan (@katebevan) May 24, 2020