{"id":719153,"date":"2010-04-19T08:26:24","date_gmt":"2010-04-19T12:26:24","guid":{"rendered":"tag:consumerist.com,2010:\/\/1.10004677"},"modified":"2010-04-18T23:35:53","modified_gmt":"2010-04-19T03:35:53","slug":"are-newspapers-covering-costs-by-gouging-readers-placing-obits","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/719153","title":{"rendered":"Are Newspapers Covering Costs By Gouging Readers Placing Obits?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/consumerist.com\/assets_c\/2010\/04\/funeral-thumb-340x253-39424.jpg?w=780\">         <\/p>\n<p>Writing on his Reflections of a Newsosaur blog, Alan D. Mutter contends newspapers are sticking it to those who place paid obits in their pages. He said the San Francisco Chronicle <a href=\"http:\/\/newsosaur.blogspot.com\/2010\/04\/death-notice-price-gouging-why.html\">wanted $450 for a 182-word death notice<\/a>. Mutter says the gouging may be part of an industry-wide trend. <\/p>\n<p>He writes:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Newspapers, like funeral directors, know they can charge whatever they want when someone dies, because it&#8217;s not a time that people are in a state of mind to hunt for bargains. In most communities, there is only one paper to choose from, so there is no other option, anyway.<\/p>\n<p>Newspapers selling high-priced death notices know that the several hundred dollars they charge will be mere rounding errors in the four- and sometimes five-figure bills generated by the average funeral.<\/p>\n<p>So, yes, they can get away with it. But that doesn&#8217;t make it right.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>What do you think is a reasonable rate to pay a newspaper to print an obit?<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/newsosaur.blogspot.com\/2010\/04\/death-notice-price-gouging-why.html\">Death-notice price gouging: Why? <\/a> [Reflections of a Newsosaur]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Writing on his Reflections of a Newsosaur blog, Alan D. Mutter contends newspapers are sticking it to those who place paid obits in their pages. He said the San Francisco Chronicle wanted $450 for a 182-word death notice. Mutter says the gouging may be part of an industry-wide trend. He writes: Newspapers, like funeral directors, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2903,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4821],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-719153","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p9NivD-315f","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/719153","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2903"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=719153"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/719153\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=719153"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=719153"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=719153"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}