Trendwatch: The AP's decision to draw up an advance obituary for 26 year old Britney Spears is being replicated for many other young, at-risk stars. The AP got caught without pre-written death stories for Anna Nicole Smith and the recently deceased Brad Renfro, but now the wire service is preparing canned obits for a bunch of 20-somethings. But why bother? After the jump, New York Sun obit guru Stephen Miller says that the AP should just calm down:

As for the Britney story, that AP piece seemed a bit silly to me. Preparing _any_ 20-something, or even 30-sometime [sic], is a bit of a stretch. No matter how reckless they are, they are far less likely to die in the near future than countless 80-somethings. Meanwhile, the 20-somethings pursue careers so anything you write gets stale fast - not so for most 80-somethings. Finally, it's much easier to get biographical information on deadline on a young famous person than an old famous person. So the upside to writing Britney is slim, unlike herself.