NY Times front page lists virus victims to mark one lakh pandemic deaths

With the number of people dying due to coronavirus approaching 1,00,000, The New York Times on Sunday devoted the entire front page to a long list of names with one line obituaries for 1,000 victims of pandemic.

The names and brief descriptions culled from obituaries from around the country fill six columns under the headline ‘U.S. Deaths Near 100,000, an Incalculable Loss’, with a subheadline reading: ‘They Were Not Simply Names on a List. They Were Us.’

The all-text list takes the place of the usual articles, photographs and graphics in an effort to convey the vastness and variety of lives lost, according to Simone Landon, assistant editor of the graphics desk.

A tally kept by Johns Hopkins University says more than 96,000 people have died of COVID-19 in the United States.

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Tom Bodkin, the chief creative officer of The Times, said he did not remember any front pages without images, though there have been pages with only graphics, during his 40 years at the newspaper.

The United States has been the hardest-hit country in the coronavirus pandemic by far, in deaths and number of infections.

As of Saturday evening, the US had recorded 97,048 deaths and 1.6 million cases of the virus, and will likely reach 1,00,000 fatalities in a matter of days.

(With inputs from agencies.)