An Official Statement by NFDA President John D. Reed Sr Regarding Washington Post Article

On March 31, NFDA held a press conference at the Mayflower Hotel in Washington, D.C., in conjunction with the association?s annual Advocacy Summit. The purpose of the press conference was to candidly convey to the media the results of an informal survey NFDA recently conducted about the impact of the present economic crisis on funeral consumers.

Unfortunately, an employee of the ?Washington Post? chose to grossly misrepresent the statements and insights offered by several licensed practitioners serving as NFDA spokespersons via an article and an online video posted the following day. The video, in particular, was a pure fabrication that resorted to a cut-and-paste method of editing NFDA spokesperson responses and placing them in conjunction with questions not asked during the press conference. Also deliberately misstated and misleading is the implication that NFDA sought ?bailout funds? from the federal government for practitioners. Clearly expressed during the press conference is that the association briefly discussed the idea internally about seeking additional federal funds to help indigent or unemployed consumers offset funeral and burial costs during the present economic crisis ? another fact this employee chose to misrepresent.

It remains unclear if the views conveyed in both the article and video reflect the biased, ill-informed perception this employee holds about funeral service or if his intent was to offer some sort of ill-conceived ?April Fool?s? joke that failed miserably.

Regardless, NFDA regrets that this individual blatantly chose to perform such a disservice to readers of the Washington Post? by providing a slanted point of view, perpetuating stereotypes and resorting to broad-brush, hackneyed clich