There’s a particular brand of absurdity that hits different when a major cable network accidentally airs your obituary while you’re promoting your latest TV show. Michael J. Fox experienced this firsthand on Wednesday when CNN published a video titled “Remembering the life of actor Michael J. Fox” that managed to commemorate a man who was, at that exact moment, very much alive.
The timing couldn’t have been more awkward. Fox had literally been at PaleyFest in Los Angeles the day before, helping promote the third season of Apple TV’s “Shrinking,” where he plays a character with Parkinson’s opposite Harrison Ford. But instead of headlines about his career or the new season, CNN’s mistake gave him a front-row seat to what most people never get to experience: watching themselves get eulogized on live television.
Fox handled it the way only someone with his comedic timing could. On Threads, he posted a tongue-in-cheek rundown of possible reactions, complete with multiple choice options that ranged from switching news networks to pouring scalding water on your lap. “I thought the world was ending,” he wrote, “but apparently it’s just me and I’m ok. Love, Mike.”
CNN later issued an apology, saying the package “was published in error” and that they’d removed it from their platforms. Fair enough. But the incident raises an uncomfortable question about how major news organizations handle breaking news and premade content, especially something as sensitive as obituaries.
The Long History of Getting It Wrong
Fox isn’t even close to being the first famous person to encounter this particular humiliation. According to reporting on the incident, this genre of media mishap has a surprisingly deep history.
Mark Twain famously encountered rumors of his death in both London and New York back in 1897. His response became legend: “The report of my death was an exaggeration.” Simple, elegant, devastating.
Then there’s Abe Vigoda, the “Barney Miller” actor who became almost synonymous with premature death announcements. When “People” magazine reported in 1982 that he’d died, Vigoda responded by posing for a photo inside a coffin with the magazine. The whole thing became so routine that he dealt with false death reports for decades until his actual death in 2016 at 94.
Jeff Goldblum got the spoof website treatment in 2009 when a hoax claimed he’d fallen off a cliff in New Zealand. Instead of issuing a stern denial, he went on “The Colbert Report” and basically eulogized himself: “No one will miss Jeff Goldblum more than me. He was not only a friend and mentor, but he was also me.”
These stories are funny on the surface, sure. But they also point to something worth thinking about: how casually we handle information about people’s lives and deaths, even when that information is flatly incorrect.
Why This Matters Beyond the Joke
The gap between when someone dies and when the public learns about it is supposed to matter. Families deserve dignity. The people involved deserve the chance to control their own narrative, or at least have accurate information reported about them. When a major news outlet publishes an obituary by accident, it’s not just embarrassing. It’s a failure of basic editorial process.
News organizations maintain pre-written obituaries for major public figures all the time. There are legitimate reasons for this. When someone passes away, having prepared material allows for faster, more comprehensive reporting. But that system only works if there’s an actual death to report.
The fact that this keeps happening suggests that newsrooms aren’t treating these templates with the gravity they deserve. An obituary isn’t like a regular story draft. It’s a document that, once published, changes someone’s entire reality for however long it remains online. Screenshots spread. It gets archived. People remember it.
Fox’s response was gracious and funny, which speaks to his character. But not everyone would handle it that way, and not everyone should have to.
The Absurdity We’ve Come to Accept
What’s genuinely strange about living through this moment is how normal it’s become to see major institutions make significant errors and just say “our bad.” CNN apologized, removed the content, and presumably moved on. Fox cracked jokes about it. The cycle completes.
But there’s something unsettling about accepting this as just part of how media operates now. Mistakes happen, sure. But when those mistakes are about someone’s death, the stakes feel different. The apology matters, but so does asking why it happened in the first place.
Maybe the real takeaway isn’t about Fox or CNN specifically. Maybe it’s about what happens when we treat information so casually that the difference between someone being alive and someone being dead becomes just another editorial oversight waiting to happen.
