Celebrating Personal Milestones in the Public Press

I always enjoy reading those ads when I go back to my hometown. I can often keep up on the doings of old friends and their families in that way.

I'm unlikely to place one of the ads, but that's because I live in a big city, and it seems unlikely that anyone who knows me or my family/friends would see it. If I were still back home, I'd consider it. I definitely see it as being more appropriate, and interesting in a smaller community.

I think a lot of this sort of thing used to be announced in churches (in fact, I know they did - and still do get announced in churches and temples. ). As people don't seem to go to church as they used to, it's just another way of getting the word out.

I would never place an ad. I am not big on "tooting my own horn". I think though, for really important occasions, it might be nice to hear about something SPECIAL in a person's or families' life.

The newspaper in question is the Allentown Morning Call which circulates through the Lehigh Valley and beyond. After Philadelphia and Pittsburgh, the Lehigh Valley area, with a million people, is the third largest metropolitan area in the state.

I remember as a child howling with laughter over the dreadful "In Memoriam" poetry on the obituary page. My mother explained to me that "we" felt grief was private, but some people were happier announcing that they were grieving. Further, many other people decided to buy In Memorium verses because they had been influenced by what they thought other people were doing.

In some ways, I'm afraid the "Personal Expressions" page is a reflection of Celebrity Culture in which people are well-known for being well-known and being well-known is a desirable condition.

The paper prints--without charge--"news" stories of couples celebrating 50 years of married bliss. Thirteen, forty and fifty are not exceptional ages (except to the people involved). Passing the bar exam (with an illustrious record in high school and college) is praisewrothy, but the paper would print this information for free when the honoree joined a law firm.

Of course, I recognize none of these people, so I tend to focus on the social phenomenon rather than their personal glory.

I'm equally bemused by Elizabeth Smart, the kidnapped child, who is evidently making the rounds of talk shows with her parents. Celebrity here is therapy?

As I've always been a happy wallflower I don't understand such need or desire for attention.

My newspaper, the largest in Oregon, just started running these paid announcements and I confess to reading them with a weird fascination. In a way they are like those bizarre Christmas letters some people send out to tell you how wonderful and successful they and their children are.

I think you're right about the culture of clebrity and I think your mom was dead on correct about greiving publicly.

Maybe people think it only really counts if everyone notices.

When I passed the bar, it was reported (not just for me, of course) in the NY Law Journal, if I recall correctly. But that was standard practice, and that's a trade paper. So the readers would have a vested interest in knowing who's in and who isn't. The NY Law Journal also posts lists of who's been disbarred. They get you entering and exiting. :wink:

My folks (and I) would never have dreamt of reporting my passing the bar in the general newspaper on our own. I think I may have submitted it to my alumni magazines (undergrad and law school), but again the readership is small and may be interested, particularly the law school's alumni. But NY Newsday? Nah.

This does make me wonder (and I'm overly morbid and this is a bit offtopic), would any of these people qualify for an obit? I mean a real obit, not something submitted and paid for by the family.

Jespah--

At this point most newspapers print free obituaries and many give the breaved family the opportunity to write their own words lauding the Dear Departed.

The mention of obits reminds me of another new custom. Newspapers offer visitors the opportunity to sign an on-line "guest book" with messages of condolences for the breaved family.

Oh, Brave New World.

Celebrity
A number of years ago I lived in a very very small town, and every morning the local radio station announced who had gone to the hospital and who had come home from the hospital. I thought it was kinda nice.

I wouldn't for a minute think of announcing my graduation from wherever in The NY Times, The Boston Globe, or The New Orleans Times-Picayune, but in a very very small town with a very very small paper of very very small circulation, yeah, it's friendly.

Small towns have a different concept of neighborliness from, say, New York, and there's nothing wrong with that. We big-city people probably seem pretty standoffish to them.

Tomkitten--

My father was a newspaper man first in Johnstown, PA and then in Pueblo, CO. He resented the space given to "Hospital Admissions" but was never able to drop the feature because People Wanted to Know.

Now, there are privacy laws. My husband was hospitalized in two hospitals, first for pneumonia locally and then, after a heart attack, he was transferred to a Lehigh Valley hospital (with an excellent record on treating heart attacks). At the time I was struggling with a cold-with-onimous-overtones and a lot of sneezing. Under the new privacy laws, the nurses had to check with him before I could be given updates on his condition.

The local paper (Circulation 50,000) still prints free birth announcements if the parents/grandparents send them in. I notice that the most ornate names are bestowed by unmarried couples. Every time I see an anouncement by a single mother with no father, no paternal grandparents listed I wish I were religious because that innocent baby obviously needs help.

I think it is a little strange, but, on the other hand, kind of nice, now that I think about it.

Wow, that pretty cynical noddy.
I remember my mom getting newspapers from home, Ireland, when I was a child. Pages were filled with local soccer teams, marriages, births, deaths, baptisms, first communion, engagements and other local interest stories. Obits were mini-bios not just a dry list of family members and date/time of funeral. I thought it was quaint. I always thought n.american newspapers lacked a certain humanity.
Who says ordinary people aren't important enough to take up space in the local rag. I don't think it has anything at all to do with celebrity culture, just people proud of those they love. Why must you famous to have the significant events publicized. If anything celebrities get way to much ink, to the point of boredom. I'm sick to death of Benifer et al, ad nauseum...On the front cover of my home town news, what do they have to do with my everyday life. If someone makes it through law school or whatever why shouldn't someone blow their horn, it's a major achievement. If mr & mrs smith remain married for 50 years, have 53 descendants, wow, I think I can manage a minute or two reading about their momentous occasion.
Ceili

I think Noddy identified her response correctly to begin with .

I might think it was charming too if these weren't paid advertisments.

Especially in cases like "Jake" - an ad in the paper thanking people for their sympathy and care is a few steps down the impersonal ladder from sending an email, which is a few long steps down from sending a thank you card.

Whether the contemporary use is appropriate or not, the long term use for those of us that do genealogy research is tremendous. For good or bad, the newspapers are still a great source of collected historical information.

Please don't misunderstand me. I'm all in favor of personal milestones when treated as news: birth announcements, engagements, weddings, anniversaries, campus news, service news, obituaries.....

My queasiness comes from people paying money to publicise their personal doings.

Of course, I'm a self-admitted, old-fashioned snob. Still, one of my many battle cries is "Never spend other people's time or other people's money.

A newspaper is a public forum--including billboards--and if people choose to pay to feature their loved ones on a billboard they are certainly entitled to do so and the newspaper can collect the money and use it to pay the salary of an investigative reporter.

There's naught as queer as folks.

Last time I looked newspapers were not in the business of charity, how else would you fund the publications?

My dad's (tiny) hometown newspaper not only featured the usual birthdays, engagements, anniversaries, and hospital comings and goings, but also routinely published out-of-town visitors! My aunt would cut out our listing and send it after every visit we made.

Celebrations
Ceili is right. Anyway, newspapers don't really seem to be in the business of providing news anymore; they squash the news in the empty spaces left between enormous ads.

What newpapers do best, really, is commentary.