(Over) charging for obits

I don't have a problem with newspapers charging for obits/death notices. The funeral homes used to charge a service fee to families for them and all they did was drop off the info provided by the family off at the paper.
That said, when someone develops a site where people can specify zip code placement and e-mail notification (through key words such as place of employment or a high school), the last obit in the paper will be that of the industry itself.

 

The funeral home didn't pay for nothin'. Your family paid for it.

Check out the itemized bill, for an item entitled "publicity and media."

 

We don't charge for them. It's considered news content. We have a woman whose job is obits. We call her Madam Death. But, we give waaayyyy to much ground on what goes in them. All are in the 10-12 inch range and are cheesy.

"Entered into rest" - "friends said he was the best fisherman they knew" - "was a Dale Earnhardt fan"

Thankfully I don't have to deal with them.

 

For just that, you don't need five inches.

 

Well, let's just say I'm not going to lose much sleep disagreeing with a guy who thinks newspapers should shut down their Web sites.

 

Our paper charges quite a bit for a obituary that says what you want to say, but offers a free basic death notice. If a member of my family passes, my paper will run an obituary for free as it did when my mother-in-law died last year.

 

But they died just as hard as the other kids! They deserve the same coverage!

 

Countless anecdotes exist where craigslist worked literally in minutes when newspaper ads that ran for weeks generated MAYBE 1 or 2 responses. In 10 years, I could absolutely see everyone flocking to their computer to see the customized memorial at some Web site that offers such a service, either for free or for a dirt-cheap fee compared to what newspapers' charge. Especially when the baby boomers are gone. The ones reading about their deceased friends/family by then will be the ones who DON'T read newspapers now, right?

 

Where have you been, smellypaper?

 

MU,

While it is not unusual anymore for papers to charge (and overcharge) for obituatries, I can't believe it costs $1,500 to put one in the Dallas Morning News.

My first guess would be the funeral home is tacking on expenses and adding about $1,200 or so of pure profit for going through the trouble.

 

At my paper, we have death notices and paid obits. Before that, they had free obits than ran on forever and a day. The first X-number of lines (I don't know how many) are free. The rest of their free speech they pay for. No one has complained.

 

Thank you so much for the warm wishes. It's been a rough couple days, and we still have a wake and funeral to go through.

Update...
The obits ran today, and to say the DMN one was worth $1500 became a bit more of a joke.
Since there were no paragraph breaks, I would say the printed content -- including a small mug -- was no more than 6 column inches. Obviously the family is broken up over much more important things, but I'm not real happy about this.
As others have said, this just seems a little wrong.