You can probably guess the part of The Blade that is the most popular with newspaper readers — the obituary section.
What surprises me is obituaries also lead the way on the newspaper’s digital-publishing platforms — toledoblade.com, BladeNewsSlide, and eBlade.
In December alone, obituaries received 1,617,333 page views on Blade websites from 282,558 people who viewed 5.72 obituaries on average per session.
Online Blade readers accessed obituaries primarily on their smart phones and tablets, 56 percent, followed by desktop computers, 31 percent, and laptops, 13 percent.
The popularity of obituaries is a bit of a letdown for journalists, who spend their days toiling to report and write interesting and what we think are important local stories only to have readers flock to see who died yesterday.
In fact the obituaries, even though they are stories about people’s lives, are considered advertising space at the newspaper.
As such, what is written in obituaries is not edited by the newsroom, which is one of the reasons Michael Craig of Perrysburg Township wrote to me recently about “inaccuracies in the classified obituaries.”
“I understand that funeral homes provide the text,” Mr. Craig began, but he suggested that we include Libbey in our advertising computer spellchecker.
It seems that on Jan. 13 one obituary spelled Libbey correct, but the obituary directly underneath it spelled it “Libby.”
Mr. Craig is referring to Libbey Inc., formerly Libbey Glass Company, one of the oldest companies in Toledo.
Connie Cross, advertising department classified manager, said Blade employees who take the obituaries from funeral homes read them over and try to catch inaccuracies.
Ms. Cross said the obituaries, as they are to appear in the paper, are sent before publication to the funeral homes and families, who sometimes make corrections.
There is one obituary story each day, and sometimes two, that the newsroom does write and edit. It is chosen by our longtime obituary writer, Mark Zaborney, in consultation with editors.
The “feature obit,” as it’s called in the newsroom, is chosen based on how famous, or infamous, the deceased was, or how prominent he or she was based on job, service to the community, or whether the person was a member of a prominent local family.
Obituaries are one of the most important parts of a local newspaper and they need to be correct. For many people their obituary may be the first thing ever written about them in the newspaper, and almost always the last.
They had better be right.
Tom Schoen, who identified himself as “BGSU, Class of 1971, BS in Journalism,” recently wrote to praise Mr. Zaborney for a feature obit he wrote about Paul W. Park, Jr.
“You wrote: ‘Paul W. Park, Jr., active until recently in the insurance business he built on command of detail and bonhomie, died Sunday at Kingstone Residence of Sylvania, where he lived less than a year. He was 92.”
Mr. Schoen continued: “Yes, it’s a straightforward and simple lead paragraph, but your turn of phrase ‘built on command of detail and bonhomie,’ is superb. I never met Mr. Park, but after reading about the way he conducted his business and interacted with people your phrase is spot on — expressed without triteness or cliche. And with an economy of words.”
This is high praise and praise I second.
A long time ago when I was a young reporter I was assigned to write obits as most new reporters at The Blade were at that time.
The assignment was always a bit daunting to me, calling grieving family members to interview them about their loved one who had just died.
Mark Zaborney is a master at that task and always writes just the right things about people who have passed.
“I've often thought that I'm reporting -- revealing, really -- history, one person at a time,” Mr. Zaborney told me. “Through a news obituary, readers ideally get a sense of a life lived and find something they relate to, or learn something about the world through an account of another’s place and time in it.
“News obituaries are news articles, not eulogies, not tributes,” he continued. “That involves reporters gathering facts, doing research, interviewing sources, and then turning the material into something that is coherent and true and perhaps even compelling.”
***
I did receive another complaint about obituaries this month, from a caller who left a voicemail.
She said she was a Blade reader who was away from the city this winter — like so many other lucky snowbirds this frozen month — and even though she was paying for digital access to The Blade, she couldn’t find the obituaries on our website.
After some digging, I discovered that our new mobile app, which readers can download on their tablets and phones, doesn’t include an access point to get to obituaries, other than the daily feature obit.
I called her back and explained to her how to call up toledoblade.com on her phone through an Internet browser and not through the app, which allowed her access to the paid obituaries.I also showed her how to download the free Blade NewsSlide app on her phone or tablet and access obituaries that way.
The digital team tells me it is working on making it easier to access the paid obits on the new website app.
My favorite way to read obituaries when I’m away from home is on eBlade, the e-delivered version of the printed newspaper. You can blow up the type, it’s backlit, and it looks just like the newspaper I start my day with in my favorite chair with a cup of coffee. You can get to the eBlade through toledoblade.com/eBlade.
However you read The Blade, thanks, and try to stay warm out there.
Dave Murray is the managing editor of The Blade. If you have concerns or questions about what you read in The Blade or on its websites, send them to him at The Blade, 541 N. Superior St., Toledo, Ohio, 43660, or email him at dmurray@theblade.com.
First Published February 6, 2019, 5:00 a.m.
