Remember yesterday’s story about the Style section’s “Appreciations”?

Here’s a primer: The Washington Post‘s relatively new executive editor, Marcus Brauchli, is concerned about duplication in the paper’s pages, and wants to limit the practice of writing both a news obituary and one of Style’s “Appreciations” in the same edition. The solution, informed sources indicated, was to run both an obit and an Appreciation only when the fallen was of towering importance.

Today that standard is getting tested: John Updike died.

So what’s the verdict, Post? Is this winner of two Pulitzers and two National Book Awards worth two pieces in the paper?

All that can be said at this point is that this emerging policy may waste just as many person-hours as, like, writing up three pieces. Apparently there are a lot of little huddles going on around the Post newsroom, with an outcome that City Desk does not yet feel comfy predicting.