 So you're one of the gatekeepers of one of the world's most exclusive clubs So numbers I've seen of every year about two and a half million Americans pass away And in that same year the New York Times might run about what a thousand? right for space reasons and I realized some of this process may be confidential but apart from obvious candidates former presidents and the like How is it determined who gets covered who gets entrance into this highly exclusive club? What are the standards and what kinds of discussions do you have and what are some features about a person that maybe wouldn't be? So intuitive to our listeners that actually are quite dispositive for determining whether you let them through the gates There is no One cookie-cutter model for who gets in and who gets out How could there be lives are so different and indeed apart from the people who are the shulins the president the kings and queens There is this whole other 90% of the iceberg that's hidden But which we may want to expose in our pageants and these are these fascinating Backstage players the inventors of kitty glitter and the lawn flamingo, etc What we look for generally and the question that's asked by our three section editors who? agonize Every day over the volume of submissions we get from families from funeral homes stories We read in out-of-town papers foreign papers the wire services Things come flooding in and these decisions have to be made every day indeed it's like the a meeting of the admissions committee of the most selective University in the world and And it's what three of you five of you There are our section head bill McDonald and his two deputies Jack catten and Peter keep news the editors are Charged first and last with the responsibility of deciding who gets in every day and roughly the length To whom it's assigned they often do it in consultation with the writers my Original training was as a cellist. I later trained in linguistics. So if they have questions on classical musicians Linguists they say is this person important is this person doing I'm worth doing I may weigh in my colleagues weigh in similarly in their subject areas The criterion we look for if we had to pick a single Question that can be asked of every applicant at our gates is did he or she change the culture?