Pgh Post Gazette Obits Honoring Lives Preserving Stories In The Digital Age

How to Navigate the Digital Shift in Obituary Writing

The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette moved its obituaries online about six years ago, and the process has changed more than most families realize. When you're dealing with Pgh Post Gazette Obits Honoring Lives Preserving Stories In The Digital Age, you need to understand both the old rules and the new constraints before you write anything. The basic workflow for submitting an obituary through the Post-Gazette now runs through their website, and it is faster than the old phone-to-editor method but less forgiving of mistakes. You go to their obituaries page, click submit, and fill out a form that asks for the standard biographical data. The difference is that the online system flags formatting issues, missing dates, and photo problems in real time rather than having an editor call you back three days later. I learned this the hard way when a family submitted a beautifully written 800-word obituary and had it rejected because the photo was in PNG format instead of JPEG or JPG. The system accepts only specific file types, and PNG is not one of them. I spent about twenty minutes converting the file and resubmitting, which added a day to an already tight timeline. My workaround now is to check the acceptable formats list before taking any photos. It is a two-minute check that prevents a lot of headaches.

The word limit for standard obituaries is around 400 words, which is shorter than most people expect. The Post-Gazette offers extended versions at higher price points, but the extended length still caps out at a reasonable number. Anything longer than that tends to get trimmed by the editorial desk, and nobody wants to watch their grandmother's story get cut down because the writer didn't know the limit beforehand.

The Hidden Complexity of Digital Obituaries

One thing that trips up almost everyone is the distinction between a death announcement and an obituary. A death announcement is a few lines and costs significantly less. An obituary is a full narrative piece. The pricing structure on the Post-Gazette site reflects this, but the line between the two categories is blurry if you are unfamiliar with it. Families often try to get full obituary treatment at death announcement pricing and get confused when the system doesn't let them proceed. Another counter-intuitive detail is that the digital obituary is not always the same as the print version. The Post-Gazette prints obituaries in a specific section, and the layout constraints mean that longer obituaries may be edited differently for print versus online. The online version often retains more detail because there are no column width limitations. This means you should treat the online submission as the primary version and let the print version be a condensed adaptation rather than the other way around. Photo selection matters more online than most people realize. On the website, the obituary appears in a feed alongside dozens of other memorials, and the thumbnail image is what people see first. A small, dark, or low-resolution photo will get ignored. I recommend using a clear headshot with good lighting, cropped to square or a 4:3 ratio, at least 800 pixels wide on the shortest side. Anything smaller than that looks terrible on mobile devices, which is where most readers are encountering the content now.

Practical Steps for Writing and Submitting

Write the obituary before you worry about any of the technical details. Get the story down on paper or in a document. Once the writing is solid, then check it against the format requirements. This approach saves time because you are not constantly rewriting to fit a word count while also troubleshooting technical issues. Most people who do it backward end up frustrated and making poor editing decisions under pressure. Gather the required documents before starting the submission. You will need the full legal name, date of birth, date of death, place of death, a brief biography, surviving family members, and a qualifying photo. Having all of this collected in one folder means the actual submission takes about ten to fifteen minutes. Without it, you will be searching for information mid-process, which slows everything down and increases the chance of errors in critical details like dates or spellings of family member names. The Post-Gazette allows you to save a draft during the online submission process. Use this feature. Write the piece, enter the basic information, and save. Come back to it later to review. Reading your own writing immediately after composing it is unreliable because your brain fills in gaps and assumes the reader knows what you mean. Waiting a few hours or even a day lets you catch inconsistencies, awkward phrasing, and factual errors that you missed on the first pass.

What the System Does Not Handle Well

The online platform has limitations that are worth understanding upfront. It does not support complex formatting like italics, bold text, or special character styling beyond basic paragraph breaks. If your obituary has quoted material, special names with diacritical marks, or specific formatting preferences, you will need to work around those constraints. Plain text only, with the narrative carrying the weight rather than visual presentation. There is also no real-time preview that matches exactly how the final published piece will look. The platform gives you a rough approximation, but the actual rendered page can differ in spacing, image placement, and how lines wrap. This means you should not obsess over perfect visual alignment during submission. Focus on getting the content right, and trust the editorial team to handle the layout within their system. Editing after publication is possible but comes with fees and delays. A minor correction like a typo might take a business day or two to process. A major revision, like changing the service details, could take longer and will definitely cost extra. I have seen families budget for one round of post-publication edits because they assumed the first submission would be perfect. It almost never is, especially when someone is writing under emotional stress.

Why This Matters More Now Than Before

Digital obituaries serve a different function than their print predecessors. In the past, a printed obituary was the primary way the community learned about a death. Now it is one of many channels, alongside social media, email newsletters, and funeral home websites. The Post-Gazette's digital presence gives obituaries a longer shelf life and wider reach, but it also means the piece needs to stand on its own without the authority that a established newspaper's print page provided. The writing quality matters more because the context is different. The archive aspect is significant. Digital obituaries remain accessible indefinitely, which is useful for genealogical research and for family members who want to return to the memory later. Print obituaries existed only as long as the physical newspaper was kept around. This permanence is a feature, not a bug, but it also means the content should be written with care because it will be found and read by people beyond the immediate community for years to come. Writing a good obituary is not about hitting every convention or including every biographical fact. It is about deciding what matters most about a person and expressing that clearly within the constraints of the medium. The Post-Gazette's digital system makes the mechanical parts easier, but the writing still requires thought and attention. Most submissions I see are adequate. The ones that work well are the ones where the writer resisted the urge to include everything and instead focused on what made the person recognizable to the people who will read it.