Call it the PR of death.
Because in an age of media saturation, the death of a well-known or accomplished person almost always presents a public-relations challenge.
When and how do you announce the death? Who will make the announcement and who will be available to comment on the person's life?
Do you have a biography ready to distribute? Are photos and video available? How about the cause of the death and the person's final hours? And, perhaps most important, has all this been cleared with the dead person's family?
The Philadelphia Museum of Art faced all of these questions last year with the untimely death of Anne d'Harnoncourt. The Philadelphia Phillies encountered the same set of questions when its announcer Harry Kalas suddenly passed away last week.
Since death has its own schedule and the media are far from patient, the answers must come quickly.
And, above all, the show must go on. . . .
To read the rest of my column from today's Philadelphia Daily News, click here.
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