VITAMEDIAS
2002's Unmemorialized Notables: Die between Christmas and New Year's, and you fall between the cracks
From a public-relations point of view, it's a very bad idea to die during the last week in December.
Magazines flood themselves with obituaries in the dwindling days of the calendar year. In part this is so readers can take solemn account of noteworthy lives that ended during the previous 12 months. But mainly it's because it gives writers and editors a light load as they head off for Christmas vacation. [...]
But you see the problem. Those who die after these publications have "gone to bed" (i.e., been sent to the printers) are too late to be included in the 2002 roundup, yet too early to be included next year in 2003's. This is an obstacle that very famous people can overcome. (Charlie Chaplin, Roberto Clemente, and Maurice Ravel all died the last week in December, yet we still remember them.) But for the moderately famous or the not-famous-at-all, it poses a serious bar to immortality.