Charging for obits

yep, that is what our management says: it's part of classified advertising.

 

Not here, thank you.

A standard obit runs free, beyond a certain length it's a paid deal.

 

It might go. Some of the things that people want are odd.

Up until about the mid-80s, my old hometown paper (about 45K) printed the patient admissions/discharges provided by local hospitals. They only dropped it because the hospitals decided to stop providing the information.

 

Our local dailies still do, for the area hospitals that make that info public. (Some people do appreciate visitors and get-well cards.) When filling out admissions forms at those hospitals, patients are asked whether or not they want their name included.

To be honest, I'm not sure about our policy on obits, because I've never had to deal with them before now. Guess I'll find out soon.

 

Our paper charges a fortune. When my dad died last year, I wrote a tribute to him with a photo, maybe 1/8 of the page. I got half-price because I'm an employee, and it was nearly $1700.

 

...and name it "The Doornail"

 

Ours stopped doing that years ago. Seems that many of those people found their houses had been burgled in their absence.

 

It might scream weekly, but I don't understand why we don't run birth announcements. Obviously for a fee.

You're telling me people would buy the shit out of them?

 

We do. But I've never understood why no birth stuff. Proud parents and grandparents will shell out cash.

 

Same reason funeral directors started omitting street addresses from obits. Thieves would check on when visitation and services were and figure there was an empty house ripe to be hit. Sad.