Working With Southcoast Today Obituaries: What Actually Happens When You Submit One
Most people don't realize how much goes into placing an obituary in the Southcoast Today, especially the New Bedford edition. I've handled enough of these over the years to know where things commonly go wrong. The process itself is straightforward, but the details matter a lot more than you'd expect if you want the final piece to actually read right and stick around properly. The first thing to understand is that obituaries in the Southcoast region aren't just death notices. A death notice is a factual announcement—name, date, funeral home, service time. An obituary is a written life story, usually a few paragraphs to a page or two, with biographical detail. The Southcoast Today accepts both, but they're priced differently and formatted differently in the paper. Confusing the two when you submit is one of the most common mistakes I see. I submitted an obituary for a client's grandmother a while back and the original draft read more like a genealogy report than a human story. We had dates of birth and death, lists of surviving children and grandchildren, and every town they'd ever lived in. It was accurate. It was also completely unreadable. The editor told us to cut it in half and add something about who she actually was. So we added that she taught Sunday school for thirty years and could always be found at the local library on Thursday mornings. That's the difference between a record and a memorial.
Here's how the actual submission process works. You contact the Southcoast Today advertising or obituary desk directly. In New Bedford, that typically means calling the main editorial line or using their online obituary submission form if they have one active at the time. You'll need the full legal name of the deceased, dates of birth and death, a brief biographical paragraph, information about surviving family members, service details, and where donations can be directed. You also provide a photo if you want one included, though there are sizing and resolution requirements. The paper runs obituaries within one to three business days of submission and payment. Payment is required upfront. You can pay by credit card over the phone or sometimes through their website. The cost depends on length and whether you include a photo. A basic death notice runs a few hundred dollars. A full obituary with a photo can range from four to eight hundred dollars depending on word count and layout. Prices change occasionally, so call to confirm before you commit. One edge case that caught me off guard involves military service. If the deceased served in the armed forces, the newspaper may want official documentation before they include military honors or veteran status in the printed piece. I learned this when a client mentioned his father's Navy service in the obituary draft and the paper asked for a DD-214 copy before running it. Having that paperwork ready before you submit saves you a day or two of back and forth. Most families don't think to grab it, and by the time they do, the funeral has already happened.
There's also a digital angle worth knowing about. The Southcoast Today posts obituaries online alongside the print version. Those online entries often stay up indefinitely and are searchable, which means they become part of the permanent record. I've seen this matter when distant relatives or even old friends find the obituary years later and reach out. The digital archive is real and it lasts. If you want the content to be searchable, make sure the spelling of names and places is exactly right. A typo in a first name can make someone unfindable for years. Another practical note about photos. The paper usually requires a high-resolution JPEG or TIFF file, minimum 300 DPI, and they may refuse a phone camera snap. I've had this happen. A family sent a decent photo that looked fine on a phone screen, and the production team flagged it as too low resolution. They gave the family six hours to upload a better one before considering running it without a picture. Having a good scan or digital copy ready ahead of time prevents that scramble. There are limitations to keep in mind. The Southcoast Today does not write obituaries for you. You provide the content, they format it. If you need help writing or editing, you can hire a funeral home to draft it for you, but that's an extra cost on top of the publication fee. The newspaper will make minor grammatical corrections but won't restructure or rewrite your content. They also reserve the right to reject submissions that don't meet their standards, though this is rare.
Get the Full Details
Some families ask whether they should publish before or after the funeral. The practical answer is that most obituaries run within a day or two of the funeral, sometimes before if timing is tight. There's no rule either way, but running it before the service means more people see it and can attend. Running it after is fine too, especially if the family needs time to gather information or write the bio properly. Neither choice is wrong. If you're handling this for someone else and you're not from the area, call ahead and ask about their current submission requirements. Formats, file sizes, and contact numbers change. The information I'm giving here reflects how the process generally works, but the specific details vary by time of year and staff availability. A quick call to the New Bedford office will save you more trouble than any amount of internet research.
