Obits R Us
Jun. 16th, 2005 09:37 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
susandennisI love obituaries. Especially those of non famous people.
My first real job was as a newspaper reporter and my first real assignment was writing obits and I sucked at it but I loved doing it.
My ex-husband was (he's not dead that I know of but no longer works at a newspaper) an excellent obit writer and he had a very important talent to go with it. He was able to cut through the grief and anguish and get amazing facts and memories about the dead person - usually on the day they died or the day after - AND make the person from whom he was extricating this info feel honored to have shared it.
My Dad wrote obits for himself and for Mom.
In the olden days, obits in the newspaper were a big deal. Today they have mostly fallen by the newspaper wayside. They have been replaced, at least in Seattle, mostly by paid death notices. The really famous people still get headlined obits but most everyone else gets nada unless their family writes and pays for it. In my Sunday paper there is a small list of notable or interesting dead with a sentence about them but that's the extent of it.
So, I've now turned my addiction to: The Blog of Death. It's actually a beautifully done website that respectfully chronicles the passing of the great, the not great and the you-probably-would-never-have-known-anything-about-this-person.
Today's two entries are perfect examples. Percy Arrowsmith died at 105 (cause unknown - I have to admit amusement there). He and his wife, Flo, were married for 80 years. And Lucy Richardson who died at 47 from cancer. Not only was she THE Lucy of Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds but she was also went on to win awards as a movie art director.
My first real job was as a newspaper reporter and my first real assignment was writing obits and I sucked at it but I loved doing it.
My ex-husband was (he's not dead that I know of but no longer works at a newspaper) an excellent obit writer and he had a very important talent to go with it. He was able to cut through the grief and anguish and get amazing facts and memories about the dead person - usually on the day they died or the day after - AND make the person from whom he was extricating this info feel honored to have shared it.
My Dad wrote obits for himself and for Mom.
In the olden days, obits in the newspaper were a big deal. Today they have mostly fallen by the newspaper wayside. They have been replaced, at least in Seattle, mostly by paid death notices. The really famous people still get headlined obits but most everyone else gets nada unless their family writes and pays for it. In my Sunday paper there is a small list of notable or interesting dead with a sentence about them but that's the extent of it.
So, I've now turned my addiction to: The Blog of Death. It's actually a beautifully done website that respectfully chronicles the passing of the great, the not great and the you-probably-would-never-have-known-anything-about-this-person.
Today's two entries are perfect examples. Percy Arrowsmith died at 105 (cause unknown - I have to admit amusement there). He and his wife, Flo, were married for 80 years. And Lucy Richardson who died at 47 from cancer. Not only was she THE Lucy of Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds but she was also went on to win awards as a movie art director.
I wrote the obit for my mom
Date: 2005-06-16 05:50 pm (UTC)Is this because they are losing money because of Craig's list?
Re: I wrote the obit for my mom
Date: 2005-06-16 06:08 pm (UTC)Paid death notices have always been around. Many states require them to probate the estate. In the olden days, funeral homes just handled it and folded it into the costs.
Then newspapers stopped writing as many obituaries (I suspect more because they could no longer focus on old white guys with impunity and writing obits for every one was way too big of a job.), the classified section got smart and started offering Death Notices On Steroids With Photos!
Now you can pretty much write whatever you want (instead of what the funeral home thought was appropriate) and have a picture if you like and you want to pay for it.
When you say 'had to pay', do you mean you had to pay as a legal requirement or you had to pay because otherwise there would have been no mention of your mother's death in the paper. If it's the former, were you required to post a picture and have it in 3 times or was that a choice?
Re: I wrote the obit for my mom
Date: 2005-06-16 08:20 pm (UTC)I read somewhere that newspapers have lost a lot of classified ad revenue due to web sites like monster and craigslist. I was wondering if they were trying to make it up by sticking it to grieving relatives.
Re: I wrote the obit for my mom
Date: 2005-06-16 08:30 pm (UTC)I'm sorry you feel you were gouged.
I kind of come at it from a different angle. I think it's great that you can pay them money and get to say whatever you want about your Mom and run her picture if you want. Back in the day, that wasn't at all possible at any price.