Metajournalistic discourse offers a valuable lens for understandinghow journalists think about their work, delineate the boundaries ofthefield and stabilize thefield amidst crisis. By considering theobituary as an artifact of metajournalism, this study aims toelaborate on how metajournalism reflects the lived experiencesof journalists. This study undertakes a discourse analysis of acorpus of obituaries of journalists (n= 2571), collected from theJournalist Memorial Site,finding that when journalists were notassociated with prestigious outlets, their authority tended to berooted in community contributions—contributions whichincluded journalism but did not center it within a journalist’spersonal identity. As an object of analysis, obituaries provideopportunity to understand the role of journalism across ajournalists’lifespan—as opposed to in reflection to news events—and an opportunity to consider the personal identity ofjournalists.