A history of obituaries in American newspapers

blogs.loc.gov

39 points·NaOH··5 comments

> Newspapers charged a fee to print a death notice or obituary if the paper had not elected to publish the death as a newsworthy event, compounding the weight of publication for families who might need to conserve their savings.

For my father's obit, which was 3 paragraphs, I was charged almost $200 back in 2008.

Obituaries & legal notices kept newspapers afloat since Craigslist killed off the classified ad revenue.

Not everyone's style of humor but I still think this skit from The Ben Show is underrated. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_R30M2Dqsd8

It’s the most popular section for local newspapers, nowadays they typically charge to have someone listed in the obituaries, unless the paper is too small

Now we have an obituary of American newspapers.

It seems they may have just turned into the online propaganda zombies they are now.

There are still small, local community newspapers that serve somewhat of their old function of keeping people informed and even some who hold local politicians accountable, but they are increasingly rare and in the case I am thinking of, holding local politicians accountable will probably end with the passing of people who were real newspaper journalists and stayed that way. The old school journalists at a local newspaper I know somewhat reminds me of “the old woman” from Fahrenheit 451, trying to hold onto something as long as possible, fighting against going silently into the night like everyone else.

But at least we will not even understand what we lost once it is gone because AI will simply be gaslighting us about reality/the matrix.

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