The heartless selling of obituaries...

My father died in July.

The obit in the Wichita Eagle was $900.

 

I think that not everyone in this thread has the same definition of "obit" vs. "death notice."

 

I'll tell you, this freaks me out. I go visit my Mom -- 1917-1990 -- and right next to it is a stone with my Dad -- 1916-(blank).
It is really weird to see a stone with my Dad's name on it while he is standing right next to me.

 

That's totally friggin insane. I'm for charging for the full obit, but in my mind it's $50-$100 depending on the length.

A grave plot doesn't cost $900.

As for the obit/death notice definition:

death notice - the basics: name/immediate family/services ... 4-5 graphs
obit - the whole mini bio: same as above plus whatever else you want to say

 

Holy Cow! Brilliant revenue source. I am kidding, but then I am not. I want to be that sales guy.

"Hi Mr. Jon, saw you would arrested for solicitation. $100 keeps your name out of the paper. You can save your wife, marriage and a job all for $100."

Sad part is, it probably could work. Way to "think out to the box."

 

Spin it as a way to drop the police blotter and open up more space for ads and you'll be a CEO by the time you wake up tomorrow.

 

At my paper, death notices are small 1-column ads placed by the funeral homes with the absolute minimum information: name, home town, time, date and site of services and burial site. The free obits are 4-5 graphs on the deceased with a little more info than the death notice, but written in a news style. These also come from the funeral homes. Occasionally mug shots accompany the obit and we run a small American flag insert for all military veterans. If you want the whole flowery, "Aunt Em went to be with the Lord and is sorely missed by her pet Schnauzer, Gertie," obit, you pay through the nose for that. As you should.

 

Agreed.

At our shop the obit is the basic info supplied by the funeral home. It's free.

A death notice is usually supplied by the family and they pay for it. There they can talk about how the deceased loved watching State U. and fishing with his grandsons use all the flowery language they want.

 

The Kansas City Star provides 9 lines FREE of CHARGE to anyone in the community. That's enough to provide a name, age, some survivors and funeral information.
For more lines, there's a charge.
And for staffers, you're alllowed a photo and substantially more lines FREE of CHARGE for immediate family members.
How's that?

 

I guess one argument I could see is that if $400 in the ProJo was too much, you had the option of doing it at a weekly or other, smaller paper for less. For what it's worth, when my mom died in May, we paid $600 for her obit in the Syracuse paper. That was a little bit of sticker shock, but my parents had money saved for their funerals, and that was just lumped under it.

I lay out the obits page at my shop, and even though ours are paid, I make changes when I see something that is really wrong. When my brother died, it really irked me that the desk at the paper where it ran did nothing to fix pretty glaring errors.

 

Whenever a family member of mine dies, I want to be able to go into businesses all over town and guilt them for making me pay for their stuff.

 

Even in my time of bereavement and grief I could find the will to say "Fuck you" to any newspaper that would charge $400 or more for a paragraph or two.