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Air Dates: July 27-August 2, 2020

There are some really great dead people.  Mo Rocca helps us remember them in part through his own appreciation of the obituary.

Humorist, journalist and actor Mo Rocca is best known for his off-beat news reports and satirical commentary.  He is a correspondent for CBS Sunday Morning, Rocca and the host of CBS’s series The Henry Ford’s Innovation Nation.  The show features stories about some of the world’s greatest inventions—past and present—and the effort it took to create them, educating and inspiring audiences with stories of creativity, hard work, and passion.  Rocca created and hosted the Cooking Channel’s show, My Grandmother’s Ravioli, in which he learned to cook from grandparents across America.  He is also a frequent panelist on NPR’s hit weekly quiz show Wait, Wait…Don’t Tell Me!

On this episode of “Story in the Public Square,” Rocca describes his book, “Mobituaries,” as his “appreciation for someone or something, that didn’t get the send-off it deserved the first time around or any send-off at all.”  He adds, “any good obit writer will tell you that a good obituary is really about someone’s life, not their death.”

“Story in the Public Square” broadcasts each week on public television stations across the United States. In Rhode Island and southeastern New England, the show is broadcast on Rhode Island PBS on Sundays at 11 a.m. and is rebroadcast Thursdays at 7:30 p.m. An audio version of the program airs 8:30 a.m. & 6:30 p.m. ET, Sundays at 4:30 a.m. & 11:30 p.m. ET on SiriusXM’s popular P.O.T.U.S. (Politics of the United States), channel 124. “Story in the Public Square” is a partnership between the Pell Center and The Providence Journal. The initiative aims to study, celebrate and tell stories that matter.