Writing an Obituary for the Times Leader in 2024
I spent years handling obituary submissions for regional papers, and the process has shifted dramatically since print died down. The Times Leader still accepts traditional print obituaries, but almost everyone I talk to now is dealing with the digital version first. Here is how it actually works, the things that go wrong, and what you need to know before you submit anything. The Times Leader is a newspaper based in Williamsport, Pennsylvania, serving Lycoming County and the surrounding areas. Their obituary section runs both in print and online at timesleader.com. The digital platform changed the game in a few specific ways that most people don't anticipate when they first try to submit one. You have three options, and they are not equal in cost or effort. Option one is submitting through their website directly. Option two is calling their newsroom. Option three is emailing the obituary desk. The website form is the fastest route but also the most restrictive. It has character limits, predefined fields, and not every piece of information you want to include has a box to put it in.
I learned this the hard way in 2019. A family called me asking to include a detailed list of predeceased relatives along withsurviving family members, favorite memories, and charity preferences. The web form would not let them do that. They had to call the newsroom instead, which added about twenty minutes to the process and required someone to be available during business hours. If your obituary is longer than three hundred words or needs special formatting, skip the web form entirely and email it directly to the obituary editor at obituaries@timesleader.com. Email submissions take about two to three business days for approval and publication. Same-day or next-day publishing is available for an additional fee, usually around sixty dollars on top of the standard rates. Print-only placement costs between eighty and one hundred twenty dollars depending on length. The digital-only version runs about forty-five dollars and includes a basic online listing without photos. Adding one photo bumps that up to sixty-five dollars. Each additional photo costs twenty dollars more.
What You Need Before You Start Writing
Most families underestimate how much information they need to gather before they sit down to write. The Times Leader requires specific details that will slow you down if you do not have them ready. You need the full legal name including any middle names, date of birth, date of death, city of residence at time of death, cause of death if the family wants it disclosed, a brief biographical sketch, surviving family members with their locations, predeceased family members, service details including date time and location, and the preferred charity for memorial donations if applicable. Here is the counterintuitive part that nobody tells you: having all those details ready does not guarantee your obituary will run in the next issue. The Times Leader publishes obituaries on a rolling basis, and if multiple submissions come in on the same day, they prioritize based on submission time and length. A two-thousand-word obituary submitted at 8 AM on a Monday might not run until Thursday if the paper is already full. Shorter obituaries under four hundred words get published faster because they fit more easily into the layout. I once had a client whose father died on a Saturday evening. The family submitted a comprehensive obituary Sunday morning thinking it would run by Monday. It did not. The Times Leader's Friday edition had already gone to print, and the Saturday edition was minimal. The obituary ended up running Wednesday with a note that the family could have expedited it for double the usual rush fee. If you know a death is imminent, submit the draft ahead of time so it is queued up and ready to go.
Get the Full Details
Writing the Actual Content
The Times Leader has guidelines that are publicly available on their website, but they are vague about tone and content requirements. They want factual accuracy, respectful language, and no advertisements disguised as obituaries. What they do not say is that they will edit your submission aggressively. I have seen thirty-word passages cut down to five without asking. I have seen entire paragraphs removed because the editor felt they were promotional rather than biographical. The biggest mistake families make is writing a resume instead of a life summary. Listing every job title, degree, and organization membership makes for a stiff and forgettable obituary. The Times Leader readers remember the human details, not the job history. Include the person's hobbies, the things they loved, the quirks that made them unique. One sentence about how the deceased always planted extra flowers for the neighbors says more than a paragraph about their thirty-year career as an accountant. Another thing beginners miss is the donation section. Families often write something like "donations to any charity" which looks careless. Be specific. Name one or two organizations. Include addresses or website links if the family wants them. This is also where you can redirect well-meaning friends away from sending flowers and toward something meaningful to the deceased.
Common Problems and How to Fix Them
The most frequent issue I see is photo quality. The Times Leader accepts digital photos but they must be at least three hundred DPI and no smaller than eight hundred by one thousand pixels. Phone camera photos taken in low light often fail this requirement. If you are unsure, send the photo and let the editor tell you. They will reject low-quality images and ask for a replacement, which delays publication by a day or two. Another problem is inaccurate death dates. This sounds obvious but it happens constantly. Family members confuse the date of death with the date of burial or the date the death certificate was signed. The Times Leader verifies dates against public records before publishing, and any discrepancy triggers a hold on the entire submission. Always double-check the exact date from the death certificate or the funeral home paperwork. The third issue is duplicate submissions. Some families submit the same obituary to multiple outlets at once. The Times Leader does not share content with other papers, but if they discover your obituary is already running on another website or in another newspaper, they may refuse to publish it. This is rare but it has happened. Submit exclusivity to the Times Leader if you want the best chance of acceptance without delays.
What Happens After You Submit
Once you submit, you will receive an automated confirmation email within an hour. This does not mean your obituary is approved. It means the system received it. Actual approval comes via a follow-up email from the obituary desk, usually within forty-eight hours. If you do not receive that second email, call the newsroom directly. Do not assume it is processing. The automated system sometimes fails to send confirmations. After approval, you will receive a proof copy to review. Take this seriously. Read it word by word. Check names, dates, and spelling of every family member mentioned. One typo in a name can cause real hurt feelings later. Corrections at this stage are free and usually turn around within twelve hours. Corrections after publication incur a fee and may require a separate correction notice in a future edition. The Times Leader also offers a companion digital memorial page that stays online indefinitely. This is separate from the obituary listing and includes photo galleries, guest books, and the ability for distant relatives to leave condolences. The basic memorial page costs an additional thirty dollars and can be upgraded to include video tributes or expanded photo albums for extra fees. Some families find this more useful than the printed version because it reaches people who live far away.
When the Times Leader Is Not the Right Choice
There are situations where submitting to the Times Leader makes less sense. If your family lives outside Lycoming County and most of your connections are elsewhere, a regional Pennsylvania paper will reach very few people who actually knew the deceased. In those cases, a national platform like Legacy.com or a dedicated memorial site serves the community better. The Times Leader is excellent for local coverage and for reaching people in the immediate area who may not have social media or internet access. If you need the obituary published within twenty-four hours and the newsroom is already backed up, consider going directly through a funeral home that has a working relationship with the paper. Funeral directors can often fast-track submissions because they submit regularly and the editors know their contact information. This shortcut saved a family I worked with last year when the obituary needed to run before the Sunday service. The process is straightforward once you understand the timeline and the requirements. The main thing is to have your information gathered before you start writing and to submit early enough to account for review delays. The Times Leader is a reasonable option for families in the Williamsport area who want both a print and digital presence for their loved one's memory.
