{"id":4140,"date":"2021-06-21T21:13:17","date_gmt":"2021-06-22T01:13:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/journalists-org-develop.go-vip.co\/newsroom\/?p=4140"},"modified":"2021-06-22T15:09:50","modified_gmt":"2021-06-22T19:09:50","slug":"in-their-memory-pandemic-offers-opportunities-to-transform-digital-obits","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/journalists-org-develop.go-vip.co\/newsroom\/2021\/06\/21\/in-their-memory-pandemic-offers-opportunities-to-transform-digital-obits\/","title":{"rendered":"In their memory: Pandemic offers opportunities to transform digital obits"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\u201cWe don\u2019t say, we posted somebody’s profile or published it on the wall; we always say we honor them on the wall,\u201d said Ruth Nasrullah, treasurer of the COVID-19 Wall of Memories and The COVID-19 Observer<\/a> editor. \u201cSo, that’s the phrase that we’ll always use.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She and her husband, Mohammed Nasrullah decided to honor and remember their legacies virtually through the COVID-19 Wall of Memories<\/a>: a 501(c)3 digital project that the U.S. Library of Congress<\/a> recently selected to join their coronavirus web archives to live on \u2014 preserving their webpages, becoming a part of the public memory.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While some media outlets are starting to slowly drift away from covering one of the most consequential news stories of a generation \u2014 the COVID-19 Wall of Memories is still trying to count victims amid a sudden surge to escape masking mandates and lockdown curfews nationwide.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Al Tompkins, a senior faculty member at Poynter<\/a> and author of \u201cCovering COVID-19\u201d daily briefing<\/a>, says that journalists shouldn\u2019t stray from telling authentic stories about human suffering and loss, especially for the \u201clong-haulers<\/a>,\u201d who survived the coronavirus and are now stuck with adverse health-related side effects<\/a> that linger long after contracting the virus.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\u201cIt\u2019s natural for us to want to put all this behind us and say it\u2019s over,\u201d Tompkins told the ONA21 Student Newsroom. \u201cSo, I understand the urge to move on, but not so fast, particularly not in the obituary column.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

With The New York Times and The Washington Post no longer publishing the names of those lost in their featured print editions, the Nasrullahs haven’t stopped humanizing the staggering figures \u2014 601,730 deceased<\/a> and counting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

More than 6,200 stories of loved ones appear on the COVID-19 Wall of Memories, but Ruth Nasrullah remembers getting \u201cvery emotional\u201d after receiving their first online submission just shortly after their website officially launched on Jan. 4, 2021.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThese are real people who lost real people in a real pandemic, like this is not a joke or theoretical,\u201d she recalled. \u201cAnd that kind of gave me palpitations a little bit, just to realize what we had gotten ourselves into.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Not all of the honorees are entries from friends or families. Some are sourced from obituaries that are posted in print or online newspapers. Excerpting a few lines and providing an outbound link to the original publisher, the Nasrullahs’ \u201cbiggest dread\u201d is for a family of a loved-one to come along \u2014 all the while asking why they took the information from the web.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While the nonprofit is fully-funded, the Nasrullahs are still self-aware that they\u2019re \u201cpulling from that world where people are making money\u201d off obituaries but say that don\u2019t desire to \u201cfeel like we\u2019re cheating funeral homes\u2019 opportunity to make money.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mohammed Nasrullah, the founder of the COVID-19 Wall of Memories, says their service is open to everyone.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“We really encourage families and people who have lost their loved ones to use this project to remember their loved ones to honor them,” Nasrullah said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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