Death of the obituary

AT MY FIRST daily newspaperi, one of the jobs of a fledgling reporter was taking obituary information from the local funeral homes. In fact, it was the responsibility of anyone getting the call – cub reporter, desk editor, sports department or any one else not answering the phone call in our smoky, coffee-soaked squalid quarters at the Mount Vernon Democrat building in southwestern Indiana.

As a newly hired reporter back in the Gutenberg press days of journalism, that call often came to me from any our local funeral homes. Initially, I felt my education in the military and GI bill-financed trip through the sheepskin factory put me above such mundane matters. But I was blessed to have received a more important secondary education.

Bill Brooks, the editor and general manager of our humble and aggressive little rag, gently gave me a good education one afternoon while listening to me bitch about the “so whats” of writing an obituary and making mistakes in doing so.

Seems when I came in that day, there were a few "minor" errors regarding an obit I had written for that day’s edition. I had misspelled the last name and had omitted a surviving son’s name. In the end, in my thinking so what?  He was an old man with no distinguished achievements, nothing to crow about compared to the most mediocre of our local luminaries.

And it was free. Not one tiny dime to pay for this announcement, even with a thumbnail mug-shot. A simple mistake. Just a name, for crying out loud. Happens ever day in print. We’ll correct in tomorrow’s edition.

Monsignor Brooks had another take.

You realize writing an obit is more important than anything you can put in this newspaper?  he asked. "He was something more!"

And then Bill punctuated his message: This probably was the first and only time his name made print, dummy!

That message has stayed with me for decades.

IN MORE RECENT TIMES, you are lucky to get a mention in obituaries unless you have stature as either a prominent figure or a dirt-bag of the lowest origin. Tis true with our own Indianapolis metropolitan newspapers. But for free, your name, hometown and service location is gets a few meager lnes.

Today, a  life lived is reduced to a few quick lines. You want more? Cash or credit card will buy all the white space you want. And big bucks, depending on the word/line count and other variables.

You provide the details and the newspaper provides the space.Grief fuels the emotions of most writers, for good and ill. Thus,  many errors are made: Misspellings, basic facts, omissions, factual errors and damnable lies. And rarely, if ever, an admission of guilt from many publishers.

With condolences to readers, newspapers today operate on profits at all costs. That's the nature of the biz. That's today's free press. Death has resurrected and sustained the revenue of today’s newspapers in column inches and revenues. 

But for the little guy, there's not much to be said in newsprint unless your survivors can afford it.

I grieve a bit for the old days of newspapering.