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The very worst assignment for a college newspaper reporter is writing the obituary of a fellow student. The Iron Blade staff has had too much experience doing that in my 10 years here at Ferrum. Since 1990, we've reported the deaths of 13 members of the campus community, nine of them under the age of 25. This week, we're faced with the task again.

Writing stories about deaths is considered routine in the news business; in fact, obituary-writing is often the first job of entry-level reporters. Because an obituary follows a clear form, it is considered to be "easy." Even if you've never studied journalism, you could write one if you've ever seen one. Following an obituary fact form which is usually supplied by a funeral home, the reporter simply plugs information like names of survivors and details about funeral services into the appropriate places and sends the story off to layout.

In some cases, the reporter may write a more detailed article known as a "death story," which does not follow the specific obituary outline and includes more information about the person who died and several quotations from people who knew him or her. This often occurs in the case of people who are prominent (and prominence may apply only to the newspaper's circulation area). The recent death of former Hollins mathematics professor Herta Freitag, reported on page one of The Roanoke Times, is such an example.

In The Iron Blade, we always run a death story rather than an obituary because we believe that every member of the campus community is an important person. Another interesting fact about obituaries is large newspapers' practice of keeping death stories on file for notable people who are still living, so that they can update and go to press quickly upon the person's death; I'll bet The New York Times had on file a death story on Charles Schulz at the time of his recent death. I've sometimes asked my news writing students to practice by writing their own death stories, assuming they died in an accident the night before. This exercise is emotionally difficult for some students, but it brings home the sensitivity required at such a time.

Writing an obituary or death story also requires the strictest attention to detail. No newspaper wants to have to apologize to survivors for getting details wrong. Obituaries belong to a category of news stories that I like to call "scrapbook," items which people keep for sentimental reasons. Thus, extreme caution must be exercised in compiling them.

Also, in some cases, ordinary rules of journalism are suspended. Although reporters are generally bound by codes of professional conduct to tell the truth, very personal details may be omitted from obituaries, even if the reporter can confirm them. A good example might be the circumstances of a person's death; if that person died of AIDS-related illnesses or a self-inflicted condition, those details might be omitted from the obituary. The rules that we follow -- at least at The Iron Blade -- are determined more by the needs of the survivors and the campus community than any hard-and-fast code of ethics or practice.

When my students have the unenviable task of covering a classmate's death, I stress that they should essentially focus on the person's LIFE more than his or her death. Although student reporters are often hesitant to solicit information from a grieving family, I encourage them to see a death story as an important part of the public record -- perhaps the last published account of a person's life. And they soon learn that talking about their loved one is an important part of the grief process for the family and friends.

Writing a death story is an enormous responsibility, one which I have guided students through far too often. During the ten years that I have been its advisor, The Iron Blade has published 13 such stories: for Joanna Rogers, Chad Bowman, Greg Perdue, Dr. Frank Hurt, Sharon Davis, Teresa Anglin, Eric Baker, Brian Ruzzi, Labrena Hudson, Mark Gibson II, Arnold Grigas, Brian Reed, and Mike Frentzel.

As a journalism teacher, I try to give student writers both the skills and the sensitivity to write these stories. Then I hope they never have to put them to use.