Medill Warns Newspapers: Keep Up with Obits

Jen: Northwestern University's Medill School is out with another very interesting project taken on by its graduate students -- this time the project is on the state of the obituary. The most surprising finding in the white paper is that newspapers still dominate obituaries. According to the study, Legacy.com, which aggregates newspaper death notices, published seven of every 10 obits for Americans who die each year.

Among newspapers, there are two schools of thoughts around obits regarding pay. In Greenville Tennessee for example, the Sun makes a point of writing an obit for anyone who dies in the community, free. The Argus Leader in Sioux Falls, S.D. took a different tack. It switched to paid obits in 2001 but received "substantial negative feedback" according to the study. Now the paper offers a limited amount of free space and requires payment $35 per inch after the limit.

This being newspapers, the authors must warn the industry not to get complacent  because obits can go the way of classifieds. Social networking sites, like Facebook, are fast becoming popular ways to commemorate those who have died in a much more engaging way that lasts longer than static, standard newspaper obits and death notices.

The student make the following recommendations:

• Don't cut resources devoted to obits since it can drive readership.
• Connect to social media sites with obits
• Newspapers should create their own social media sites too, allowing readers to post comments, pictures and videos of the deceased.
• Send out obit "alerts" since many people check out death notices regularly and often