The Journal Star came out with their new obituary policies today. Starting September 1, the Journal Star will only report “details of the person’s death, time and place of services, burial and visitation” for free. Anything more than that will cost you $15 per column inch. Some things for which they will now be charging include: picture of deceased, survivors, where the person worked — all the “cold, hard, verifiable facts” they’ve been printing for free all these years.
They put a positive spin on it, naturally. “At last,” I paraphrase, “our readers can say whatever they want about their dearly departed. We wouldn’t let you do it before, but now we will.” I would hope so at $15 per column inch. A truly generous gesture would have been to provide the same service they always have for free, but charge those families who wanted to include additional information. Let’s call a spade a spade: this is nothing more than a cost-cutting, revenue-increasing strategy that they’re trying to pass off as an improvement in service.
It’s a win-win for the paper — if the bereaved don’t buy the space, other advertisers will. And since the PJS is the only daily paper in town, keeping advertisers happy is their primary concern.