Obituaries & Death Notices

Who Reads them?  Funeral directors and Real Estate Agents

Why do Funeral Directors read them? It’s a “No Brainer” they can check up on their closest competitor without driving past his door.

Why do Real Estate Agents read them? So, they can second guess what houses or properties that may be coming up on the market.

All things being fair and equal an Obituary about a prominent person in the community can serve as a human interest story; After that they are simply a waste of money.

A little history is in order.

You need to understand, only as far back as the 1950’s not every family had a telephone. Early Television Stations as well as Radio Stations’” signed off” at Midnight and began the broadcast day at 6 or 7 AM the following morning.

Newspapers provided many services beyond just “All the News That’s Fit to Print” which incidentally was the motto of the New York Times since 1851. Newspapers were the world’s source for social media not just news. And, death notices and obituaries fell under the heading of Classified Advertising simply because it was not always easy to notify relatives and friends, and associates that were beyond your immediate area. Interesting to note, there was a great popularity of foreign newspapers in our country for the social and hometown local news that wasn’t covered by the World News Section of U.S. Newspapers.  Obituaries and death as well as weddings and birth announcements were important news from home that could only be gotten from the hometown newspaper.

In 1932, Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster had Clark Kent popping in and out of phone booths to become The Man of Steel, Superman. While I am sure some still exist the average kid today cannot fathom why anyone would need a booth to talk on their cell phone.

Today, immigrants and foreign visitors don’t need newspapers from home. Thanks to the internet, hometown news is just a click or two a way and with Skype they can even talk to family and friends left behind, including seeing them on their computer screen all in real time.

Bottom line, death notices are completely out of date and Obituaries are human interest stories about the life and times of prominent people.

It is the fair honest funeral director that explains the obsolesce of death notices to the families they serve.

It is the intelligent funeral director who doesn’t let himself get suckered into believing online death notices will increase his business