Writing and Submitting an Obituary to The Advocate
Obituaries in local newspapers exist in a strange space between grief and public record. You need them done quickly, accurately, and in a format that actually gets printed without going back and forth three times. Here is how The Advocate handles obituaries and what you need to know before you submit. The Advocate, like most metro dailies, accepts obituaries through multiple channels: their website, email, fax, and in some markets through partnering funeral homes. The standard word count runs 150 to 300 words for a paid notice, though family-submitted versions can be longer if you pay the additional per-word rate. Unpaid death notices are shorter and strictly factual. Understanding the difference matters because the layout and tone expectations are completely separate.
The Advocate Obituary Honoring Lives Preserving Legacies Through Memorial Journalism
This is the line you see in their style guide, and it tells you everything about what they want. They are not looking for a literary exercise. They want accurate biographical data, surviving family names, service information, and enough detail that someone who barely knew the deceased can still understand who the person was. The phrase "honoring lives" is editorial shorthand for "don't be vague." The phrase "preserving legacies" means "include the things that made this person distinctive." From my experience drafting obituaries for several publications, the hardest part is not the writing itself. It is the information gathering. By the time a family calls the paper, they have usually had two funerals scheduled, dealt with the estate attorney, and spoken to at least twelve relatives who all remember the deceased differently. Getting a single accurate list of survivors requires a structured approach. I use a simple template sent to the primary contact by email. It asks for: full legal name including any maiden or former names, date and place of birth, date and place of death, education, career highlights, military service, organizational memberships, hobbies, predeceased relatives, surviving family with relationships and locations, service details, and preferred memorial donation. That last item is where most people stall. The Advocate does not print "memorial donations requested" in the same way some outlets do. Their format typically places that as a brief line at the end, and some editors prefer "in lieu of flowers" phrasing over the more direct donation requests. If you are unsure, send both and let the editor decide what fits.
Common Problems and Workarounds
The most frequent issue I run into is the discrepancy between the funeral home version and what the family actually wants published. Funeral directors often prepare obituary copy as part of their service, and that copy tends toward the formal and incomplete. It lists the facts but strips away personality. A family might receive the draft from the funeral home and realize halfway through the approval process that their mother is described only as "a devoted wife and mother," when she was actually a master woodworker who won regional awards and ran a little bookshop for twenty years. The workaround is straightforward: treat the funeral home copy as a skeleton, not a final product. Read it carefully, pull out the factual accuracy items, and then write your own version using interviews or old letters or social media posts from the deceased. This takes roughly 45 minutes for a standard obit and usually results in something that actually matches what the person was like. The Advocate's editors have noted this pattern repeatedly. They will reject copy that reads like a resume and accept copy that reads like a person. Another issue is timing. The Advocate typically runs obituaries on a daily schedule, with weekend editions sometimes hosting larger memorial sections. If you submit on a Thursday evening for Friday publication, you are cutting it close. Deadlines are usually early afternoon, sometimes 2 PM, depending on the market. Miss the window and your piece does not disappear entirely, but it gets pushed to Saturday or Monday, which matters if the service is on Friday.
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Pricing and Format Expectations
Pricing varies by market and by how you submit. A standard paid obituary in The Advocate typically runs between $150 and $350 for the base word count, with overage charges per word after that. Photo inclusion adds another $50 to $150 depending on whether it is digital-only or print-and-digital. Some markets now offer enhanced online memorials with guest books and extended photo galleries at higher price points, usually $200 to $500 for the premium package. If cost is a concern, the death notice alternative is the realistic option. These are shorter, usually under 100 words, and cost significantly less. They include the essential facts: name, age, date of death, surviving family, and service information. They do not include photographs or biographical detail. For many families dealing with immediate expenses, this is the practical choice and there is no shame in it. The Advocate also partners with a number of funeral homes that pre-negotiate rates. If you are working through one of those partners, ask about their standard obituary package before you commit. Some bundles include the obit, the online memorial page, and a printed keepsake copy at a discount that is hard to beat when ordering individually.
What Editors Actually Look For
Several counter-intuitive things matter more than you would expect. First, the order of survivors follows a specific convention that most people get wrong. The standard format lists the surviving spouse first, then children in age order, then grandchildren, then parents, then siblings. Mixing that order or listing siblings before children will likely get corrected by the editor, which adds a delay. Get it right the first time and the piece moves through production faster. Second, military service should be mentioned but not detailed unless it is particularly unusual or the family specifically requests it. A simple "served honorably in the United States Navy" is sufficient for most layouts. Full service histories take up valuable space that could go toward biographical content, and editors will trim the military section down to one line regardless of how much you submit. Third, and this is the one most people miss: include the deceased's full name at the time of death and any name changes. If the person was known by a nickname their entire adult life but their legal name was different, the obituary should note both. I once submitted a piece where the deceased went by "Mickey" on all daily documents and social circles, but her legal name was Mildred. The family had submitted "Mildred Ann Clarke" and never mentioned the nickname. When readers saw the notice, they were confused. Adding "Mildred 'Mickey' Ann Clarke" in the opening line solved the problem and took approximately three seconds.
Submission Process
Most The Advocate markets accept submissions through their website's obituary portal. You create an account, fill in the form fields, upload a photo if you have one, and submit for review. Review times are typically 2 to 4 hours during business days. Weekend submissions may not be reviewed until the next business morning. Email submissions are also accepted but require more back-and-forth. You send the text and photo to the designated obituary address, and a staff member responds with formatting questions or correction requests. This route is slower and less reliable than the online portal. Fax is essentially obsolete except in markets where elderly funeral directors still prefer it. Phone submissions are not accepted for accuracy reasons. After submission, you will receive a proof, usually within the review window. Read this proof carefully. One character error in a name or date can cause real distress for a family, and corrections after publication are possible but involve fees and delays. I always read the proof aloud to catch errors that my eyes skip over. It takes an extra two minutes and has prevented at least three mistakes I can think of.
Limitations You Should Know About
The Advocate, like all local newspapers, operates on shrinking print budgets. This means obituaries may appear in a condensed format in the print edition even if the online version is fuller. Do not assume that what you see online will match the print layout exactly. If the printed version matters to your family, ask about their combined print-and-digital packages, which guarantee the fuller text in both places. Another limitation is geographic. The Advocate serves specific circulation areas, and obituaries are generally restricted to residents of those areas. If the deceased lived just outside the primary circulation zone, the piece may be held for the online version only or declined entirely. Call the obituary desk first if you are unsure about residency requirements. This typically takes a five-minute phone call and saves hours of resubmission hassle. Perhaps the most important limitation: newspaper obituaries are not permanent in the way people assume. Print runs expire. Digital pages can be removed or reorganized if the publication changes its website platform. If permanence is a priority, consider supplementing the newspaper notice with a standalone memorial website or a published memoir. The Advocate's online archive retains obituaries for a considerable time, but retention policies change without much notice.
A Practical Checklist Before You Submit
Before you hit submit on any obituary, verify these items against your source documents: Name spelling — cross-reference the birth certificate or driver's license, not just what the family remembers. Dates — birth and death dates should match the death certificate. Discrepancies here are the most common correction request.
Surviving family — call at least two relatives to verify the list. One contact almost always misses a sibling or a half-relative. Service details — confirm the date, time, and location with the funeral home or place of worship directly, not through memory. Photo — use a recent, high-resolution image. Blurry phone photos from 2018 will be rejected or replaced by the editor.
Payment — have your credit card ready. Most systems will not hold a submission without payment confirmation, and the review queue moves faster for paid entries. The process is not complicated, but it is easy to rush through and produce something that does not properly represent the person. Take an extra hour. Verify the facts. Write the obituary yourself rather than relying entirely on the funeral home draft. The result will be something the family actually wants to read, and the editors will process it without sending it back for corrections.
