The heartless selling of obituaries...

1. I have to stand up in defense of one funeral director. One of my best friends is a funeral director at the only local, family owned mortuary we have in town. He is tremendous at his job in helping families in their time of need. He is a third generation funeral director at the company started by his grandfather.

As for the guys at the big corporate places, we had one busted for sleeping with an under age girl and another caught with kiddie porn both less than a year ago.

2. I wished we'd charge for obits. We are the only paper out of 16 in our company that does not charge because our news editor won't give up editorial control of the content. A year and a half ago when it really hit the fan around here and people started losing jobs, he stopped just short of saying he'd rather employees be let go than him let go of his control of the obits.

If someone is paying, then it's their dime. As it is, if someone mentions grandpa was a Dale Earnhardt fan (or whatever), our editor takes it out because he doesn't think it's dignified. You're only allowed to mention certain people in the preceded by deaths, others not. If someone has a live-in girlfriend or boyfriend, even if they have lived together for 20 years and have kids, hell no. They aren't family.

 

My paper, like others, charges for anything other than a basic obit. My father died several years ago and his only connection to this area was that I lived here and worked for the newspaper. When we got to the funeral home in his and my hometown, 1,000 miles from where I work, the funeral director - a childhood friend - told me my newspaper called wondering if our family wanted to put an obit in our paper and offered the family a 20 percent discount. Uh, no.

 

That's how we do it. But I've been pushing to go to all-paid, simply because there are days there are more obit pages than news pages in the A section. Three or four pages of obits is not uncommon here.

 

I think the basic info should be free. That is news.

 

When our paper switched to paid obits, the debate in our newsroom was about how they were going to be handled now that they were essentially ads. We had reporters who simply wanted nothing to do with obits anymore now that they were being paid for (they're basically handled by a hybrid of the ad dept. and a newsroom clerk but then laid out by the copy desk).

My biggest problem with them is that our editors decided that once the obits were approved by the funeral homes or the families that they could not be touched anymore. I'm routinely bothered by the lack of AP style in them, especially postal abbreviations instead of AP versions, lots of subject-verb disagreement and some of the worst flowery language that never flew when they were free and written by an obit clerk. But they paid for them so they can do whatever they want, I suppose. Short, death notices are free at our paper, too.

I wouldn't call it heartless, but I do think something was lost when newspapers of record went to paid obits.

 

The paper I used to work for started charging a couple years ago. I did not think it was a good move at the time, mostly for idealistic journalism reasons. I understood the decision was a business decision, and even though I didn't agree with it, I understood it... but something that happened a few months later that really just made me think about the brutality of business.

A few months after this decision was made, my grandmother died. Our family made the decision to go with the death notice rather than a full, paid obit. Frugal grandma would have wanted it that way. The day the death notice was set to run, I got a call at my office desk phone.

"Sports, this is azom."

"Hi, azom. This is Marie in advertising. We noticed someone with your last name in our death notices for today. Were you two related?"

"Yes, she was my grandmother."

"Yeah, we weren't sure. I think your father was in here yesterday. Anyway, as an employee you qualify for a discount on obits. It's only $175 [or whatever it was, way too much for me or my family]."

"No, thanks."

"Oh. Well, don't you want to talk to your family about this opportunity?"

"No. We're good."

"Oh."

Five seconds of awkward silence...

Click.

Two things to note: The marketing department called me from 40 feet away... and never said anything along the lines of, "Sorry for your loss."

Yet another reason I left the business. Business is cold, but it shouldn't be as cold as my grandma.

 

If my father knew the ProJo charged for obits, he'd have checked out much sooner. I just remember my mother sending me in with the funeral director to edit the thing, and without cutting people, places, things or the heart out of it, we saved $400.

 

Charging for obits is so last year. Shouldn't we start charging people to keep their names out of the police blotter?

 

This sounds like our obit clerk/newsroom phone person. She doesn't have much tact when dealing with callers of any kind. But when we went to paid obits, I was never so embarrassed as those days when she would argue with family members of recently deceased folks about the cost of obits. It was awful.

This is why it's good to have the funeral home as a buffer of some kind (they put the obit in their fees and then pay the paper; they also make sure the paper has the obit and approves of a proof). But it also shows the need to have a little customer service training, especially about dealing with folks who are grieving. That just hasn't happened at our shop.

 

We never had to worry about this, so I guess I'm lucky in that aspect.
My grandmother had an eight-inch bylined story on her when she passed. She used to work there and someone in obits thought it would be fitting to give her a small story on what she did in her time there.

 

It's not heartless. It's business.

Wasting a page or more on obits is crazy. If someone wants four graphs at no charge, fine. If they want to talk about Uncle Bob's peaceful ascent to the afterlife and 15 rambling/boring inches starting from his birth, pay for it.

 

Funeral homes used to charge for "obituary service" even when newspapers would print them for free. The service was dropping them off at the newspaper.
I don't have a problem with it - but I think Legacy.com will eventually supplant newspaper obits.
The problem is the people who are dying these days make up the bulk of readership.