One of The Star’s biggest profit centers — the obituary pages — has just become more profitable.
The paper went to a new obituary system today, and the changes are significant. First and foremost, instead of giving families the first eight lines free, as has been the case for many years, the paper now charges for every obituary.
People who don’t want to — or can’t — pay for obituaries will only be able to have their loved ones listed in an index at the beginning of the obituaries.
Until today, The Star charged people based on a sliding, per-line fee after the first eight lines. As of 2017 (when I last checked prices), lines nine to 11 were $114; lines 12 to 15 were $170; and every additional five lines was $39.
Now it’s a flat fee of $68 per column inch. By my rough calculations, the change will increase obituary revenue from about $6,000 a page to about $7,750 a page. That’s a nice bump for the paper but not for KC area residents.
It’s regrettable that The Star has chosen to charge for all obituaries. Giving the first eight lines free was a great customer and community service. It was not only a goodwill gesture but also a point of ongoing connection with the community.
At the same time, I’m not surprised. The Star’s circulation continues to dwindle, and the paper’s connection with the community continues to become more remote. Although it’s always been “for profit,” The Star used to be considered a civic jewel, similar to institutions like the Kansas City Symphony, the Lyric Opera and Missouri Repertory Theatre. Now, it’s strictly a business enterprise, at least from ownership’s point of view.
I don’t know if this new obituary system is being implemented at the other 28 McClatchy newspapers, but I would assume it will be, if it isn’t already. As most of you know, a New Jersey hedge fund, Chatham Asset Management, recently bought the McClatchy chain out of bankruptcy, and, as I’ve said before, hedge funds are not in the newspaper business to make readers happy. Their focus is on the bottom line, and Chatham is going to maximize revenue every conceivable way it can.
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Besides cost, here are some of the other changes in the obits…
:: The names of the deceased are in larger type than they used to be.
:: The date of death is included in each heading, along with the name.
:: Each obituary starts with the person’s city of residence. (This is the best element of the new system, in my opinion. In the past, you could read all the way through some obits and never learn where the deceased lived or what his or her connection to Kansas City was.)
:: The obits are no longer in alphabetical order. A clerk in the obit department told me she wasn’t sure why the obits are now randomly placed but that she thought it had something to do with the file formatting. (This is the second-worst part of the new system, after the elimination of the eight free lines.)
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As you might expect, the rollout was a bit patchy. For example, Jerry A. Hines’ nine-line obit appeared twice in succession, and only half of Marsha Elizabeth Macri Stanton’s name made it into her heading. She was just Marsha Elizabeth.
Like most significant changes in a newspaper, it will take readers a while to get used to the new format. From the appearance standpoint, I don’t mind it, but like I said, at its core it represents more distancing between The Star and its readers.
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NOTE: Thursday’s obituaries are in alphabetical order. Perhaps Wednesday’s random presentation was just one of the first-day wrinkles.
JimmyCsays: At the juncture of journalism and daily life in KC 
Well, like they were fond of saying at the height of the Cold War, “Better dead than read” … or was that “Better dead than Red?” In any event, Jim, I have an issue with obits not being in alphabetical order if there are a great many of them to be looked through, and this gain in revenue on the obit page isn’t enough to move the needle in the grand scheme of things for The Star’s future. With Chatham Asset Management running The Star, it’s definitely a case of “amateur hour,” as it’s referred to, and this move is proof of that.
Jim, I think you missed the most obvious change. The body-type of the obits now looks huge, and is much easier to read (for oldsters like me). The new type size should also please those who recount their quite ordinary lives in tedious detail, as if they deserve to go down in history.
Some people save their biggest splashes until the very end, eh?
EDIT!! :-)
What a shame. For many readers of The Star, the obits are the only time their name appears in their paper. One more reason not to read The Star.
Jim, do you remember how shocked and dismayed people were when the Star began charging for obits in the 1990s? That was when the work of writing the obits was moved from the newsroom to the classified advertising department.
Besides the implications for the Star’s public service mission, that change made a big impact on accuracy. Unless someone had been a significant public figure, obits from then on were written by family members or funeral home personnel. If the Star received an obit that said someone who turned 12 in 1945 had fought in World War II it was never questioned – just run it and cha-ching.
Not being a paying reader, I have noticed that the Star is locking local entertainment and restaurant stories and leaving national stories pretty much open to anyone.
Back when I was a reporter and editor, I never foresaw restaurants becoming a major “beat,” up there with City Hall, the courthouse, cops and the state capitols. I’m not sure the “beat” warrants that much attention, but, that said, Joyce Smith is a terrific person and does an excellent job of keeping readers up to date on the restaurant scene. And, obviously, restaurant openings and closings are a much bigger deal now than they were pre-Covid-19.