If someone famous dies as a result of an external force or condition (car crash, drowning, lightning on golf course), journalists report it. If someone famous dies due to some common disease or affliction, journalists report it. But if someone famous dies due to the usual result of blatantly self-destructive behavior (like heavy cigarette smoking, black-coffee-drinking or relentless fatty-food-eating for decades), journalists don’t report it. In other words, if someone in effect commits a form of slow-motion suicide, journalists would rather not point this out. Update: I should have just spat out what I was told a day or two earlier, which was that the late John Hughes was (or had been) a heavy cigarette smoker and coffee drinker. Actions more often than not have consequences.