On 05/10/2007, phoebe ayers phoebe.wiki@gmail.com wrote:
I once talked to a librarian at a major news organization here in the U.S.; one of the most interesting things I learned was that a big part of her job was doing biographical research on older famous people considered "likely to die soon" -- so that when they actually did bite the dust, there would have a nice obit ready to go. Apparently most news organizations do this.
The BBC's such department, legend has it, is known within the Corporation as "the Department of Stiffs"...