By: Wayne Robins Newspapers Won't Let Go of Dying
Mark Twain was at no loss for words when he read his own obituary on
June 2, 1897. The great wit and former newspaperman took full advantage
of the setup, making the immortal observation: 'The report of my death
was an exaggeration.'
But it's no exaggeration to say that a newspaper without obituaries
might as well do away with sports, advice columns, and letters to the
editor: They're fundamental. A contributor to a recent online discussion
group wondered if any newspapers were offering digital obit newsletters
as a means of drawing either paying subscribers or advertisers from the
obvious selection of florists, funeral homes, and estate lawyers.
'Where is the market for this kind of interactive media?' newspaper
consultant Peter Zollman asked rhetorically. 'It's the diaspora of
people who used to live [in a town], have moved away, and ... want to
know: Who was born, who got married, who died?'
Some newspaper Web sites and other online outlets are finding that
you can make a living dealing with dying. The appeal seems especially
strong for suburban weeklies and small-city dailies.
The Bismarck (N.D.) Tribune's site has a searchable database of more
than 9,000 obits dating back to 1996. Births and deaths for the current
month are accessible by the date they appeared in the print edition.
The obit link for the online edition of the Globe-Gazette of Mason
City, Iowa, is listed immediately after 'News' on the home page and
before 'Sports,' 'Opinion,' 'Nation/ World,' 'Financial News,'
'Classified Ads,' and other major subjects.
Specialized Web sites dedicated to obituaries are emerging and even
forging strategic alliances with newspaper companies.
A company with portal ambitions called 4Anything.com has a popular
4obituaries.com channel, with links to the obit sites of about a dozen
newspapers, from The Charlotte (N.C.) Observer to the Fairbanks (Alaska)
Daily News-Miner. But its emphasis is on famous people. 'We receive
significant traffic when someone in the public eye passes away,' said
spokeswoman Sarah Starr.
Another portal site, HeavenlyDoor.com provides information on everything
from funeral homes to vault dealers. It has a front-page link to a
'Newspaper Obituaries' section, which on Wednesday had links to the obit
pages of 140 newspapers, many of them dailies.
The most ambitious online obit operation, however, may be Legacy.com,
with investors such as Tribune Ventures and CNI Ventures, investment
units of the Chicago-based Tribune Co. and Phoenix-based Central
Newspapers Inc., respectively.
Legacy.com has a proprietary search engine called 'ObitFinder' that
links to the obit pages of more than 1,000 newspapers. It also has
partnerships with about 1,500 funeral homes, according to Bill Paige,
its director of communications.
Legacy.com sees itself as a complement to newspaper death notices and
obituaries. A newsroom focusing entirely on obits, and longer, paid-for 'memorials,' is part of the company, according to Paige, a former
journalist with United Press International.
Legacy.com hopes to become profitable by selling its 'memorials,'
1,000-word life stories that can be augmented with photographs,
eulogies, poems, and tributes posted on the site in theoretical
perpetuity. (The price for a Legacy.com 'memorial' is $145; newspapers
or funeral homes selling 'memorials' receive some of the revenue.)
When funeral homes submit their death notices to local newspapers,
they also send notices to Legacy .com. (Its Web address is given in
the newspaper death notice.) Legacy.com posts a free death notice
with a guest book so that friends or relatives of the deceased can
e-mail condolences.
In any case, online obituaries - whether from newspapers, aggregators,
or stand-alone sites - are likely to be a booming business as baby
boomers age. 'The people who wrote their own wedding vows in the
1960s love to personalize and take control,' said Paige. 'This is
just another way to use technology to facilitate a stage in life.'
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Wayne Robins (wrobins@editorandpublisher.com) is an associate editor
for Editor & Publisher magazine.
(c) Copyright 2000, Editor & Publisher
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