In today's Sun-Times there is a full page obituary on page 9. It's for a very attractive woman who obviously died much too young. The obit includes the nice love story of her and her husband. But who is she? I have to assume her husband's family is heavy. Or at least someone is a friend of Mike Ferro. The article says she grew up in Bridgeport in a working class family, four room apartment. So I don't think her family has the connections.

I guess when you own a newspaper, you can print whatever you want. But if you're going to be a respected metropolitan daily, there are certain standards. The entire industry is dying- or at the very least the delivery method for the news is changing. The Sun-Times is obviously on the ropes. I don't think the answer is to treat the death of a virtually unknown 36 year old woman, no matter how nice and beautiful she may be, the same way you treat the death of Nelson Mandela.

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Anybody here seen my old friend Bobby?
Can you tell me where he's gone?
I thought I saw him walkin' up to The Hill
With Elon, Tulsi, and Don

i read your post and got the feeling you wouldnt have noticed the article if she was ugly

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the world will always the world. your entire existence is defined by your response.

Yesterday the Trib printed last year's B1G basketball preview in the Sports section.

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Back off, Warchild. Seriously.

I would have noticed it. I'm wondering whether they would have printed it. I just can't figure out how someone I never heard of warrants an obit twice as big as Connie Dierking's. And on page 9 rather than in the obituary section.

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Anybody here seen my old friend Bobby?
Can you tell me where he's gone?
I thought I saw him walkin' up to The Hill
With Elon, Tulsi, and Don

I just assumed the last name Thompson and Bridgeport bred meant she had Daley connections

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O judgment! Thou art fled to brutish beasts,
And men have lost their reason.

@JORR - Not sure who she is but in my opinion, whether or not she/family is connected, somebody must have paid a pretty penny for that full page obit. I may be wrong and it wouldn't be the first time.

My father-in-law passed away in August and if i remember correctly, The Sun-Times wanted at least $400 for the bare minimum obit that you normally see with no pic or frills.

Pics, art, bigger size. etc. all added to a final increasing price that was very high. The cheapest paper we found for an obit was The Herald-News in Joliet for around $300 - again for the bare minimum size.

I got out of the newspaper business a few years ago because I could see it was headed for hard times. I would be very surprised if that obit was ran free of charge. This is Chicago and we know it is about who you know and all that stuff but this is a big obit and a full page. Wow.

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"This is Chicago, my friend. Anything can happen."

That was my first thought, but I don't think so. The husband is from Oak Park and I think the spelling of Thompsen is different.

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Anybody here seen my old friend Bobby?
Can you tell me where he's gone?
I thought I saw him walkin' up to The Hill
With Elon, Tulsi, and Don

oh sorry i read your original post wrong. I get what your point is now. disregard what i said, my point was your original point. i completely agree

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the world will always the world. your entire existence is defined by your response.

Since you're a former newspaper guy, I'll ask, isn't there a different between an obit and a death notice? An obituary being reserved for people of a certain level of interest or importance to the general readership and a death notice being an ad placed by the family of the deceased.

I would think it's similar to drawing a line between editorial and advertising. When I ran my speaker business I advertised in Car Audio magazine. It was only discussed in the vaguest of terms, but their sales staff made it very clear that if my ad buy was large enough the likelihood of receiving positive reviews from the writers was very good.

I know when that honcho from ITW passed away Ferro & Co. caught heat because they treated his death as if the pope had just died. Yeah, the guy was Ferro's mentor, okay, but it's really not a great idea to run a paper based on personal whim if you want to be respected.

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Anybody here seen my old friend Bobby?
Can you tell me where he's gone?
I thought I saw him walkin' up to The Hill
With Elon, Tulsi, and Don

Definitely a thin line. A lot of it depends on the area and size of your circulation. In smaller/medium markets, I have seen where a community minded businessman who owns a couple of car dealerships, runs full color ads 3+ times a week, passes away and the story could be on the front page - above the fold. All because he was friends with the publisher. To your point - a very personal thing. In bigger markets maybe wouldn't be quite "front page news?"

My experience in newspapering was the prepress, press run and circulation processes. I have been out of the newspaper thing for a while now. I honestly don't know all the nuts and bolts about the editorial/advertising policies. Many things have changed over the recent years. From what I hear about the biz now from former colleagues is that they charge for EVERYTHING these days. "Back in my day", you would have never seen an ad ran on the front page. Now, it is very common.

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"This is Chicago, my friend. Anything can happen."

$400 for an obit? good god.

JORR, would you have?

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"He is a loathsome, offensive brute
--yet I can't look away."

You would have noticed it.....So you read the obituary section regularly?

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Go Cubs!!!!

one of my guys reads the obits everyday, sends the emails out giving you the "do you know who died" and is always attended wakes.

Yup, fun guy, dont hang with him much anymore.

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"That's what the internet is for. Slandering others anonymously." Banky
“Been that way since one monkey looked at the sun and told the other monkey ‘He said for you to give me your fuckin’ share.’”

Geez, next you're going to tell me the bands that play Pitchfork fest got good reviews and/or the 'best new music' tag

My innocence is shattered

My God, what kind of question is that? Poor dead girl. But she was really cute. I don't think any straight guy wouldn't have.

And when my mom died earlier this year I know the price for a Sun-Times death notice was a lot higher than the Tribune. I think $300 which may have been twice as much as the Trib. My cousin suggested that I not put it in there and get more flowers instead. But I told her there was no point in getting more flowers for a wake no one would be attending since they didn't know about it. Almost everyone on my mother's side of the family worked as a paper handler at some point. After the Tribune busted the union, none of them read that rag anymore.

And yeah, Steve, I read both papers cover to cover everyday, including the obituaries and death notices. But my point is, this particular obit was not in the obituary section. It was on fucking page 9 of the paper.

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Anybody here seen my old friend Bobby?
Can you tell me where he's gone?
I thought I saw him walkin' up to The Hill
With Elon, Tulsi, and Don

Pic?