By DAVID GREER
KPA Member Services Director

Donn Wimmer saw the pros and cons of the situation. He really struggled with his decision. He’s not alone – others have too. But as of Sept. 1, Wimmer’s weekly paper, the Hancock Clarion, began charging to publish detailed obituaries.

“I said in years past that I would never charge for obituaries because I felt like that was part of a newspaper’s job to provide that information and I still think that,” Wimmer said, “but with the economy the way it is, the trends in the newspaper business where ... it’s not really looking good ... we’ve got to look for every source of revenue we can.”

Initially, Wimmer had misgivings but not now. The funeral homes in his community actually brought the idea to him.

“We have two funeral homes in the county and they both encouraged it,” Wimmer said. “They said a lot of the other newspapers they send obits to were doing it.”

A local funeral home director told the longtime Western Kentucky publisher bluntly: “He told me ‘you’re losing money by not doing it,’” Wimmer said.

So, Wimmer’s weekly in Hawesville now charges $40 for a detailed obit, which includes a photo. The Hancock Clarion will continue publishing a free basic death notice – one that includes just the name of the deceased, survivors and arrangements. The Clarion won’t bill families directly. Instead, the paper will bill the funeral homes and they will bill families as part of the overall funeral expenses.

The newspaper business, Wimmer said, has changed and papers must be willing to look at new revenue sources.

Wimmer, of course, is not alone in his decision. Many newspaper executives nationally, as well as in Kentucky, have wrestled with this issue in recent years. And many have come to the same conclusion. Several Kentucky dailies, but not all, already charge to publish obits – although several have continued publishing free basic death notices.

The Readership Institute at Northwestern University took an in-depth look earlier in the decade at newspaper obituary policies across the country. It didn’t find anything resembling a uniform obituary practice. Newspaper policies varied widely, the institute said in a report on its web site, including policies on whether to charge for obits.

But it does appear the trend toward paid obits – a practice seemingly favored by many large metro dailies – is now finding more acceptance among some community newspapers, as well. More than three-dozen Kentucky weeklies responded to a recent unscientific KPA e-mail survey on paid obituaries. The papers were about evenly split among those that never charge to publish obits, those that always charge and those that sometimes charge, if families desire content not normally accepted in free obituaries.

Of the Kentucky weeklies that publish paid obits, pricing varies widely from those that charge low to moderate flat rates per obit to charging the regular ROP column-inch rate to charging classified and even nonprofit rates.

Not too surprisingly, opinions among Kentucky editors and publishers on paid obituaries vary significantly from those who endorse the idea either because of the additional revenue or because they say it adds consistency to how obits are handled to those who oppose the idea because it turns news into advertising content or reduces the number of obits published or is unfair to low-income individuals.

“The Tri-City News has charged for obituaries for several years now,” said publisher Jeff Wilder of his Eastern Kentucky paper in Cumberland. “We encourage personalized obituaries that often include a picture. For many years, it used to be only prominent citizens in the community who were afforded the opportunity to have a photo placed along with an obituary. We encourage it with all of ours.

“Locally, the funeral director pays the charges. One director told me he just includes the obituary cost in the overall cost of the funeral services. We get a number of obituaries from former residents and sometimes these are paid through the out-of-town funeral director or the family. The electronic age – digital pictures and e-mail – has surely streamlined this process.”

On the other side of the issue, Greg Wells, managing editor of the Times Journal in Russell Springs, is concerned that if obits must be paid for, then some will be omitted if families can’t afford to pay. The Times Journal does not charge for obits.

“With profitability for all papers being what it is I can certainly see why papers would look to this as a revenue source,” Wells said, “but I’m not sure it’s a good choice. Fundamentally it changes what is news content into advertising content. Readers already have a very hard time understanding the difference between the two and clouding the issue even further by charging to include news has the potential for disaster.”

Wells’ point was illustrated by a 2002 story in the New York Times on the trend toward more paid obituaries. The story, written by Felicity Barringer, told how two 83-year-old Colorado widows died on the same day in neighboring Colorado communities. Both deaths appeared in a nearby daily paper. But there was a big difference in how the two were handled. One woman’s obit, Barringer wrote, was only 45 words long and there was no mention of her 51-year marriage or her volunteer work. But the other woman’s obit was 230 words long and detailed her careers of being a hair stylist and nurse. And it mentioned that many friends would remember her as a fun-loving person with great style.

The difference? It wasn’t news judgment, The Times reported. It was money. The short obit was published free of charge while the other woman’s family paid almost $95 for her obit. It was billed through the funeral home. The two appeared on the same page in the paper – one virtually indistinguishable from the other, the Times reported.

Josh Byers, publisher of the Floyd County Times and the Hazard Herald, formerly worked at a New Mexico paper that began charging for obits after having published them free previously.

“We ran basic obituaries for free (as we do here at the Floyd County Times now). Part of the explanation was that in the past our newspaper treated obits as regular copy. We cut grandkids if we needed the space; we kept them if we needed the inches. To me, that seemed unfair. One person would ask why relatives were in one obit and not another and there was hardly a good answer.

“By implementing a paid model, we could assure the public that exactly what they wanted would run and not be compromised. Here’s what a free obituary consists of and here’s what it will cost you to run it paid.”

Benjy Hamm is editorial director for Landmark Community Newspapers Inc., a group owning about 20 Kentucky newspapers, most in Central Kentucky. He is not a fan of paid obits although LCNI leaves the decision to its local publishers.

“My concerns about paid obits come from personal experiences. I worked for a daily newspaper in South Carolina that started charging for all obituaries. At one point, we had a list of six small funeral homes that could not place obituaries in the paper because they were more than 90 days behind on their payments. Families could get a small, free death notice, but that was all. I think the families involved and readers were hurt by the policy. A number of other people chose to run death notices instead of paying for full obituaries, further reducing the amount of content in what we know is one of the best read sections of the paper,” Hamm said.

“The paid-only policy also can have the unintended effect of reducing the number of obituaries from the minority community, as the public editor for the Raleigh News & Observer has addressed.

“I would hope that if any newspaper is evaluating whether to charge, that its leaders would fully consider the potential impact on readership and credibility. Many larger dailies have determined that paid obits are the way to go, but what’s “good” for the metros isn’t necessarily good for community papers,” Hamm said.

Meanwhile, Becca Lawyer, a member of the Brannon family who owns and operates the Bourbon County Citizen, summed up her feelings this way:

“Economically, we hurt just like everyone else but I can’t see our newspaper changing policy that includes charging for obituaries. I’ll take a pay cut first.”