JustPassingThrough

Wondering if he is very ill, but not dead yet, and this was some kind of early draft statement accidentally sent out, quickly followed by the PR people telling the media outlets to disregard it.

My guess is that Yahoo automatically scrapes and publishes all of the press releases from NewsDirect, since they by all means look like a legit service. But then that raises the question that if this is a hoax, how did it wind up being run in the first place? I can't imagine anyone could just submit anything and have them run it as an official press release.

Other way around. This is linked on the Yahoo page as the source.

The source is a website that just publishes press releases. There is a press contact and email address at the bottom for J. Bickerton PR, which upon a quick Google looks like a real PR firm, but I have no clue if that's a real email address.

Looks like that article is just a scrape of the initial press release.

Some more information has been released by his office: https://www.cnn.com/2023/01/18/politics/greg-steube-congressman-injuries-accident-property/index.html

Prolific producer Edward R. Pressman has died aged 79. His credits included American Psycho, Badlands, Conan the Barbarian, and Wall Street.

I was reminded of Prince Rainier of Monaco after he was mentioned upthread, and he died at 81 in 2005.

Yes, I was not expecting a long, advance obituary to be run by non-US publications, especially where it's the middle of the night. By the nature of these things, newsreaders can be extremely famous in their country but basically unknown outside of it, moreso than most other public figures. Though her being on two DLs shows international presence. Can verify that it's been a huge deal in the US. I think ABC, where she spent most of her career, broke into programming immediately to announce her death and I'm guessing the other national broadcasters did as well.

QO from the BBC.

Reports up at Variety and TMZ now. EDIT: News on all four now, with Deadline and The Hollywood Reporter.

The Tony Dow situation earlier this year was far more understandable, because it was a statement directly from his team that misreported him as dead. This was just really shoddy stuff from all the outlets that picked up on it. TMZ is usually right on this but that's no excuse to just use them as the source instead of getting direct confirmation from a spokesperson.

The Independent's piece has now been updated to say that he is alive.

Discharged: https://www.cnn.com/2022/10/13/politics/patrick-leahy-hospitalized/index.html

Leahy has been hospitalized again: https://www.politico.com/news/2022/10/13/leahy-hospitalized-00061807 His office says that he is going in for testing "as a precaution" after feeling unwell, and will stay overnight.