Writing Obituaries for the San Francisco Chronicle: A Practical Guide
Death notices and obituaries in the San Francisco Chronicle are two different things, and getting that distinction wrong will cost you time and money. A death notice is essentially a factual announcement—name, age, date of death, surviving family, service details. An obituary is a narrative piece that tells someone's story. The Chronicle charges by the line for death notices, while obituaries have different submission guidelines and pricing tiers. I spent years helping families navigate this process, and the first mistake I see people make is submitting a 400-word life story as a death notice when it would be far better suited as a paid obituary. The SF Chronicle Death Notices Honoring Memory Understanding Obituaries section runs daily, and submissions go through a strict verification process. You need the exact legal name as it appears on government documents, the precise date of death, and at least one immediate family member who can confirm the information. The newspaper will not run a notice without verifying the death with a funeral home or the issuing medical examiner's office. This takes time, so plan for at least 24 to 48 hours between submission and publication, longer if your information is incomplete or contains discrepancies.
Submitting Through the Sf Chronicle Death Notices Honoring Memory Understanding Obituaries Portal
The online submission portal is at sfchronicle.com/obituaries, and you can fill out the form directly there. The form asks for biographical details, survival information, service arrangements, and whether you want the notice to appear in the print edition or online only. Print placement costs more but reaches an older demographic that still relies on the physical paper. Online-only submissions are significantly cheaper and appear immediately on the website, which is where most people under 60 will look first. One specific problem I ran into repeatedly involved military service listings. People would list a branch and years of service, but forget to include their rank or discharge status. The Chronicle requires verified military information, and they will contact the veteran's discharge office to confirm details before publishing. If someone served during a conflict era, the verification process can take up to a week. The workaround is simple: submit a copy of the DD-214 with your initial paperwork. It eliminates the back-and-forth entirely and guarantees the military honors section is accurate. Another counter-intuitive detail most people miss is that the Chronicle does not publish photographs with standard death notices unless you pay for an upgrade. A basic death notice with text only might run around $150 to $250 depending on length, but adding a photo bumps that to roughly $300 to $400. For obituaries, photos are included at no extra charge within the standard rate. If a photo matters to you, it is often more cost-effective to submit a short obituary rather than a death notice with a photo add-on.
Common Pitfalls and What to Avoid
The biggest error families make is including too much information in a death notice. These are compact, and every extra line adds cost. List the essential survivors—spouse, children, grandchildren, parents if still living—and skip the extended family unless specifically requested. The Chronicle has character limits per section, and going over means either paying for additional space or having your notice cut off mid-sentence, which looks sloppy and feels disrespectful to the deceased. Spelling errors are another issue that causes delays. If the deceased's name is misspelled, the newspaper will hold the submission until it is corrected, and that could push your publication date past the funeral. I once had a family submit a notice with the wrong middle initial, and because the name was common in the Bay Area, the verification team spent three days confirming they had the right person. The fix was straightforward once we provided a Social Security number match, but it was stressful during an already difficult time. Double-check everything before submitting. There is also a timing consideration that nobody warns you about. If you submit after the Monday noon cutoff, your notice may not appear until Wednesday's edition. The Chronicle runs death notices and obituaries on a schedule tied to newsroom workflows, and weekend submissions face the same delays. If the funeral is on a Saturday, you need to submit by the previous Wednesday at the latest to guarantee appearance in that day's paper. This is not negotiable, and the online system will not stop you from submitting late—it just will not publish on time.
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When to Choose an Obituary Over a Death Notice
Obituaries in the Chronicle can run significantly longer, up to several hundred words, and they allow for personality, achievements, and personal anecdotes. They are appropriate when the deceased had a notable career, community involvement, or a life story that deserves more than a few lines. The trade-off is cost and editing time. Obituaries go through editorial review, which means the newspaper may suggest changes or cuts before publication. This is usually helpful, but it can delay things if you are attached to specific wording. Death notices are better when you need something published quickly and affordably, or when the family prefers a formal, brief announcement. They do not go through editorial review in the same way, so what you submit is closer to what gets published. The downside is that they read like administrative records, not tributes. People looking for a genuine sense of who the person was will find obituaries more satisfying.
Final Practical Notes
Keep a copy of everything you submit. The Chronicle retains records, but accessing them later for genealogical research or family archives requires a formal request that can take weeks. Having your own copy with the publication date and page number saves you from that hassle. Also, consider ordering printed copies of the page if the notice appears in the print edition. Most families do not think to do this until months later when they realize the digital archive has moved the notice to a different section or the URL changed. The Chronicle's obituary and death notice team is professional but stretched thin, especially during high-volume periods like winter months when publication numbers rise. Patience is necessary, but so is accuracy. The faster you get the details right the first time, the faster everything goes live. Rushing leads to corrections, and corrections slow everything down. Take twenty minutes to verify names, dates, and service information before hitting submit. It will save you hours of follow-up calls and potential embarrassment.
