The last hurrah
02/28/08
It was only a matter of time before local daily newspapers - the ones we used to count on for being a complete, accurate archive of essential community information, like the records of births and marriages and deaths - would realize that there's a pile of money to be made on death and dying and grief. Enough money, in fact, to make up for, say, a significant loss in circulation. About an estimated $659,000 a year, in the case of the Berkshire's own Daily Profit, for instance.
It's simple. Charge for obits. Everyone dies. An infinite market.
Moreover, charge a lot, higher than the basic column rate. Much, much, much higher than the page rate you'd give to your favored auto dealer. Those in mourning will pay it because they don't think they have a choice - at least, most will - for how else would people know about the funeral service. How else to honor a life?
And no one would say a word, either, because, first of all, the death of a friend or family member is a really difficult moment to endure, and second, because the newspaper can claim that it's only offering a service - a service that, of course, isn't free.
By this reckoning, the report of the life and death of a Berkshire citizen isn't important news any more to be carefully, thoughtfully prepared and double-checked for accuracy and thoroughness, and sometimes to be featured on news pages rather than the obituary page.
Instead, an obit is a privilege granted by the newspaper - so long as you have the means to buy it. For that privilege, the deceased's loved ones can write the obituary any way they want ' so long as they have the means to pay for it. And by the way, the paper doesn't have to employ someone to write obits. What a win-win when it comes to dying.
Under this scenario, of course, the newspaper will no longer be the reliable source of trustworthy data that it has been. In family-generated obituaries, ages can be disguised, relationships obscured and relatives eliminated, achievements exaggerated or falsified.
Like so much else in today's news media, the reality of who we are and what we've done and how we've lived is converted into what we - or someone we know - wished we'd done and been and lived. And that is truly the act of dying, to be buried, as it were, anonymously, as if real life were not good enough to be honored by a factual, honest account.
I learned all this from an acquaintance - let's call him Ed - whose brother recently died. Ed's from Stockbridge, and when his father and mother passed away some years ago, their obituaries, with small photos, had appeared in the local daily free of charge, back when the previous newspaper's ownership regarded the reporting of important news to be an obligation of journalism and part of the compact the paper had with its readers.
So Ed was outraged when he found that a notice of his brother's life published in the widely circulated daily newspaper would cost $489 to get in the essentials, and that he would have to write it.
He made a decision not to pay it, so the obituary for his brother didn't appear. Instead, Ed used e-mail to notify friends and acquaintances of his brother's passing, and he had a local weekly paper publish the notice ' for free. The funeral was well-attended.
Ed's story reminded me of an article in the Columbia Journalism Review several years ago written by Mike Hoyt, a CJR editor. He recounted his reluctance to pay the Kansas City Star $500 for his mother's obit. "Did she not always keep each Kansas City Star on her kitchen table for three days, until she was sure she had harvested all of its wisdom?" he lamented bitterly about the heartlessness of charging for commemorating a citizen's life in a few inches of type.
And he added: "Charging for obits may mark the precise moment when newspapers began a slow drift away from their readers."
It's a lot more serious than that. Daily newspapers have been committing suicide by compromising the quality and integrity of their content. The next logical step is to do away with impartial news gathering altogether. Why not simply charge for the privilege of publishing press releases that go unchecked, unchallenged and unedited because they are paid for?
Charging for obituaries is not a drift; it's a death knell.
2/29/2008
And how!! You have reminded me of what I thought when I wrote a check to the Lakeville Journal for my dad's obit. I was so numbed by his death at the time that I could barely raise my ire to the level of being pissed off.
Had they wanted the outrageous amount the Berkshire Vulture charges I would have gone ballistic then, despite any grief induced reticence to make a fuss.
This is why I am a webbie...newspapers have just about obsoleted themselves, and the cultural need to speak to each other has become ever more important to facilitate.
64.252.208.75
3/2/2008
In 1994, Mike Phillips, then editor of the Bremerton (WA) Sun told the
American Journalism Review that "obituaries are a symbol of a newspapers
commitment to the community." With so many newspapers now owned by large
chains, that commitment has moved from community to Wall Street.
69.182.29.81
3/28/2008
You say: "... If you pay, you died. If you don't, you never existed."
I think the appropriate metaphor is: If you don't pay, you didn't really died!
68.110.229.179
