I’ve noticed our local newspaper often has just a handful of obits, and it’s not unusual to go a day or two between obits listings. Previously, going back several years, there were always obits. Ten would be a rather light day, as there were usually more. In general, the funeral home/cremation service will have the obit posted, but it’s often not submitted to a newspaper.
Similarly, I’ve been noticing a greater number of obits with either no services at all or a private service for immediate family. (Just an observation, not a FQ.)
The days when a local newspaper was an all-purpose information service for a community are dead and gone. The little not-quite-news factlets that you used to get from the paper–the temperature tomorrow, the TV listings tonight, the baseball scores from last night–are all available from other places that are better and easier to use. It’s not a huge surprise that people aren’t thinking of the paper as a place to let people know who died.
I think engagement and wedding announcements–same thing, but (usually) happy instead of sad–fizzled out decades ago. And now that generation is planning their parents’ funerals.
When my parents died (many years apart) there was no obituary. My siblings and I saw no reason. My parents were not into after-death rituals, neither am I or my brother. We just figured cremation without any viewing/memorial/service/whatever most people do. My sister was distraught and wanted a memorial service. My brother and I let her do what she wanted, but did not attend.
That’s. . . rather high. My mother died in 2005 (my last personal experience with an obit), and I don’t recall the cost, but it wasn’t anything that raised my eyebrows–and I’m pretty cheap.
Pedantry: An “obituary” is a news story written by a reporter about someone who died, and as such, is usually reserved for important people. The things that you find twenty to a page, written by the next of kin, are “death notices”.
Cite? I see no definition or historical reference to the term being written by a reporter. As far back as the early 1800s I see it being used to reference, well “death notices with biographical info.”
But, in any case, though, the FQ has been answered.
I’m sure there are multiple reasons. Obituaries and other announcements that are news are still published in newspapers. It’s the other ones, the death notices and other announcements that people pay for that are less common. And I think that is in part, because the information that was in death notices is now available through funeral home websites . It’s in part because most people never put death notices in large daily newspapers like the New York Times. They used smaller , more local newspapers. And those newspapers in my area are not the same as they once were and don’t have the readership they used to have. And I think part of it was mobility. When I was younger, I would see an death notice in the local weekly paper and see that the parent of someone I knew from grade school had died. Or that a classmate was engaged or that an former neighbor had a child. Because chances were the parents of the engaged couple or the new grandparents were still in the area even if those getting married or who had a baby weren’t. But that doesn’t really work anymore. If the deceased moved to a retirement community in Florida and children and grandchildren are scattered over the US, where would you publish the death notice ? Much easier to put a link to the info on Legacy.com on social media - I can call the relatives and inform them of my mother’s funeral (when it’s time) , but I don’t know how to reach her friends who moved away.
Depends on the newspaper - my father’s about 10 years ago in the local weekly cost about $100. Four lines in the NYT today is more than $250 - and most people want more than four lines.
Another factor is that a newspaper is passive…but online obits actively encourage feedback from readers.
I recently heard about the death of a minor acquaintance who had lived near me 50 years ago in my university dorm. No contact since then, and I hadn’t thought of her in decades
But reading the comments on her obit page, I saw that she had lots of friends who mentioned the same hobbies and interests that I had known her for. So I learned more about her life, and in a more personal way, than I would have learned from reading a newspaper obit.
Just another price data point: when my father died during COVID the quote was about $300 for 3-4 lines. As a genealogist (serious amateur) it was important to me to have it, but the cost was just too much.
I looked up the cost for the Baltimore Sun and prices start at about $120. On the other hand, I looked up the small newspaper from the town I grew up in and the cost was $25. The local paper where I live now doesn’t give you the price online. You have to contact them.
When my brother-in-law passed away, the funeral home set up a nice obituary page on the internet complete with multiple pictures that would cycle through and a section for people to leave comments. His parents wrote the obituary, and it was a lot longer than the 4 lines that a newspaper typically gives you.
If you want a hard copy to keep in your genealogy book or whatever you can just print out the page.
Friends and family were all emailed a link to the page.
You don’t get the notice to the general public that you get from a newspaper, but everything else is much better.
We paid for an obituary in the Philadelphia Enquirer when my mother passed away 4 years ago. It was one of those “We thought that’s what she would have wanted things” but realistically she had lived to age 90 and anyone alive who knew her in that area had already been notified.