Are obituaries obsolete?

Bloomberg's accidental premature publication of Steve Jobs' obituary makes me wonder: Are obituaries obsolete? Journalistic writing is basically episodic. We write about what happened, what is happening, what might happen, but always centered around the moment, and always structured as a disposable item.In the print world, with rare exceptions a person's death was the only occasion that would justify the publication of that person's life story.But the Internet has changed the way we deal with time, just as it has collapsed space. Everything is available now ... and that isn't limited to reports of recent events.Journalists today need to learn to not only report and write episodically, but also in the encyclopedic form. Steve Jobs' life story should be an living document.This isn't just an issue of obituaries, of course. Every local newspaper should become an evolving resource online. In addition to covering incremental stories, on the Internet we can and should build presentations that place the latest developments in the context of the longterm story arc.I'll have more to say on that subject in a future episode.