Newspapers and the press in general normally have an obituary team who write and update obituaries for noteworthy people who are still alive. That way if anything happens, they can be quick off the mark and publish a well researched article about the person. Occasionally these are published in error when the person in question is still alive.
The added text is an instant, unprepared change.
Having a doodle would be creepy, like "oh, we had that prepared already!" (well, a bit like boing-boing, I guess)