What makes a good obituary? Why do readers/viewers read and watch them?

Blog 9: What makes a good obituary? Why do readers/viewers read and watch them?

An obituary is a news story and you need to apply the same type of content and standards as you would for other stories. The lead is important, probably the must important aspect to an obituary. A good obituary will have the who, what, where, when, how, and why in the lead. You must include the time and place of the funeral, the time and place of the burial, visitation time, survivors, date and place of birth, achievements, occupation, and memberships. There are five safeguards for obituary writers to follow in order to make a well written obituary. You must confirm the spelling of names, family members and deceased. You must check the addresses, and you may have to contact the mortuary about correct addresses. You must check the birth date against the age to see if person’s birthday was before or after date of death. You must verify obituary with family or mortuary that will go to the newspaper. You must check your newspaper’s library for stories about the deceased but make sure not to find stories on someone different with the same name. Obituaries are well written when the author mentions a distinguishing characteristic of the person’s life. Usually whatever it is that distinguishes the deceased can be used to make the lead that much stronger. Some other things to remember that make good obituaries are choosing your words, try to avoid much of the language found on mortuary forms. You must also be sensitive to the family, in giving the cause of death. Some families will not want the cause of death to be on there and you must take that into consideration. Also the writer has to be sensitive in handling embarrassing information so don’t put it out there that the deceased was either a homosexual, had AIDS, or any other diseases that the public does not need to know about.

Readers will read obituaries to see who has passed on in the community. Readers are also family and friends of those who have deceased. They want to read it to see what reporters have to say. A lot of people will read obituaries first when they open the paper. Readers want to see if anyone of significance has passed on and local community members to see if he/she knew the deceased.