[JonnieCache]

All news organisations prepare obituaries and related content for famous figures in advance.

There's a classic piece of BBC lore about this, the story goes that the reason BBC staff are now no longer allowed to browse the library of preprepared obituary pieces is because Margaret Thatcher's tape was getting worn out from being watched and re-watched too many times.

[simonw]

I remember that joke from Drop the Dead Donkey.

There are certainly cases of obituaries that were published where the actual author of the obituary had themselves died several years earlier. I've also heard of journalists who update their own obituary every couple of years.