Writing Obituaries That Actually Get Read in 2024
I spent nine years at the Inquirer's obituary desk before moving to digital archives. The job changed more in those nine years than in the previous forty combined. If you are writing a death notice for publication today, you need to understand how the format works and what reviewers actually look for. Most people treat obituaries as boilerplate exercises. They miss the structural details that determine whether a notice gets assigned a photo, reaches the front page, or disappears into a database fold. The process starts with a death certificate extract. You do not write from memory. I have seen too many notices pulled for factual errors about dates of birth, survivors listed in incorrect order, or military service claimed without documentation. The Inquirer requires a notarized death certificate, a brief biographical sketch from immediate family, and permission to publish from the estate executor. You can submit through the newspaper's online portal, which runs an automated check for incomplete fields, or mail a physical packet to the obituary desk at 1701 Market Street. Processing takes three to five business days during normal operations. During hurricane season or major holiday weekends, expect delays up to two weeks. Here is what nobody tells you about the submission requirements. The biographical sketch needs to hit a minimum of 250 words to qualify for layout placement. Anything shorter goes into the condensed column, which has no photograph and appears near classified ads. I watched a woman resubmit her husband's notice three times because she kept writing 180-word versions that read more like resume bullet points than human accounts. The fourth version, at 312 words with specific memories about his habit of whistling while fixing cars and his actual role in the community—was published with a full-page portrait. Length matters, but substance matters more.
The Inquirer's staff editors apply different standards than local papers. They look for three things: verifiable community impact, distinctive personal details that cannot be fabricated, and a narrative arc that connects the deceased to broader Philadelphia history when possible. A retired teacher who volunteered at the Reading Terminal Market for twenty years fits the criteria. A successful businessman with no visible community ties rarely does, unless the death involves circumstances of public interest. This is not about judgment. It is about reader engagement metrics that determine advertising revenue for a section that already operates on thin margins. Word choice carries weight you might not expect. Avoid phrases like "passed away peacefully" or "went to a better place." These add nothing and signal to editors that the writer is struggling to find substance. Instead, specify what the person actually did. "She taught third grade at Harrowgate Elementary for thirty-two years" beats "She loved children" every time. Specificity signals authenticity. Vagueness reads as template material, and template material gets rejected or shortened during editing. The digital transition created complications the old guard never anticipated. OCR errors in historical records mean names can appear misspelled in search results. I found a notice for a man named Delacroix indexed under "Delacroy" because the OCR software misread the final x. Family members spent months receiving death announcements addressed to the wrong spelling. The solution involves manual metadata correction requests submitted through the archives department, which cost nothing but require patience. Turnaround is typically sixty to ninety days.
Photography submissions have their own minefield. The Inquirer accepts digital images but rejects anything below 300 DPI or larger than 4MB. Phone camera photos taken in poor lighting get flagged during quality control. I learned this after processing a batch of twenty-three submissions where six were rejected for technical reasons the families did not understand. The rejected notices received email notifications explaining the issue, but elderly subscribers often mistook these for error messages from the newspaper and called the main desk in confusion. Clear communication about image specifications prevents this. Costs vary significantly depending on placement and length. A basic text-only notice runs approximately 85 dollars for up to 150 words. Each additional word costs twelve cents. A full-page obituary with portrait photograph and extended biography runs between 650 and 950 dollars, depending on current rates and any required editorial assistance. Prices increase during peak periods like Memorial Day weekend and Christmas week when demand exceeds available layout space. Budget accordingly if the death is anticipated. One practical problem worth mentioning involves survivor lists. The Inquirer requires survivors to be listed in specific order: surviving spouse first, then children, then grandchildren, then parents and siblings. Deviations trigger editorial flags and possible rejection. I handled a case where a widow wanted her children listed alphabetically rather than by age. The family insisted on this ordering due to complicated dynamics with the eldest child. The editor accommodated by placing the eldest child first but allowing alphabetical ordering within the remaining positions. Boundaries exist, but reasonable flexibility is possible when communicated early.
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Timeline management matters more than most people realize. The notice must be submitted at least forty-eight hours before the desired publication date. Requests for expedited processing on a same-day or next-day basis cost an additional 150 dollars and are subject to editorial availability. During busy news cycles with major events, expedited requests may be declined even with payment. Plan around newspaper workflow, not your personal schedule. The morgue report circulates throughout the newsroom each morning at seven. Notices submitted before that window have a better chance of editorial consideration, though submission time alone does not guarantee placement. Historical preservation adds another layer of complexity. The Inquirer archives data from the early twentieth century, but digitization is incomplete for notices before 1985. Physical copies exist in microfilm at the Free Library of Philadelphia, and researchers can request scans through the newspaper library, but response times run four to six weeks. If you are tracing family history through old obituaries, account for this delay. Direct photocopier access to the archives requires an appointment and costs two dollars per page for copying services. The rise of online-only memorials created an unexpected side effect. Some families now publish exclusively on paid memorial websites, bypassing newspapers entirely. These platforms offer customization options newspapers cannot match, including video tributes, guest books, and social media integration. However, they lack editorial oversight and factual verification. Errors persist indefinitely unless the family corrects them. For genealogical research purposes, newspaper archives remain more reliable despite their limitations. The Inquirer's fact-checking process catches issues memorial sites routinely miss.
If you need to locate a specific obituary, start with the newspaper's online archive search. The database includes notices from 1998 onward and allows filtering by name, date range, and section. Records before 1998 require visiting the microfilm reading room or requesting archival research through the newspaper's records department, which charges a flat research fee plus hourly costs for staff time. Current rates are forty dollars for the first hour and twenty-five dollars per additional hour. Research requests typically complete within ten business days, longer during summer vacation periods when staff rotates. Digital formatting affects how future researchers access these records. The Inquirer migrated from print-centric to digital-first workflows around 2015. Notices published after this transition are available in searchable HTML format with embedded metadata. Older notices exist primarily as scanned images of the original print layout. Image-based records resist full-text search and OCR processing, making them harder to locate through keyword queries. This limitation matters for researchers searching for specific details like occupation, cause of death, or surviving relatives mentioned in the body text. Community impact assessment deserves its own consideration. The Inquirer prioritizes notices from individuals with documented contributions to Philadelphia institutions, organizations, or cultural life. This does not mean ordinary citizens are excluded. A neighborhood grocery store owner who sponsored little league teams qualifies through sustained local engagement. What disqualifies notice-worthy coverage is purely transactional professional success without visible community integration. The distinction matters to editors who balance limited space against reader interest expectations.
Review and correction procedures exist but operate on tight deadlines. Once a notice publishes, corrections require written submission with supporting documentation within fourteen days. Verbal requests by phone are not accepted. Corrections to factual errors proceed quickly if documentation supports them. Requests to remove content or alter narrative emphasis face stricter scrutiny and may be declined if the original publication met editorial standards. Families sometimes misunderstand this boundary, expecting the ability to rewrite history after publication. The human element persists despite technological changes. I remember processing a notice for an elderly man whose wife had predeceased him by eight years. He requested a joint photograph in the layout despite being the surviving spouse at time of publication. The editorial team approved the exception, recognizing that the couple appeared together in the only family portrait available. Small accommodations like this maintain the dignity the format is supposed to convey, even when policy technically allows denial. For most people writing a notice, the practical path involves gathering documentation, drafting the biography with sufficient specific detail, selecting an appropriate photograph, and submitting through the proper channels with enough lead time to handle unexpected revisions. The Inquirer's obituary desk can answer procedural questions but does not provide writing assistance. Professional grief counselors sometimes help families draft narratives, but the content must reflect actual knowledge of the deceased, not generic sympathetic language that editors recognize immediately as manufactured.
