The Hartford Courant, the oldest constantly revealed newspaper within the U.S., revealed two obituaries final month for Tom Condon, maybe the paper’s most achieved journalist over the previous half-century. Earlier than retiring in 2015, he spent 45 years with the paper as, amongst different roles, an investigative reporter, a columnist of 20 years and chief editorial author.
He died Sept. 10, at age 78, after a recurrence of most cancers.
Other than publishing the obits, the Courant had nothing to do with both one.
One of many obits ran first in The Connecticut Mirror, written by managing editor Stephen Busemeyer. Like Condon, Busemeyer is a former Courant staffer. The Mirror is a nonprofit startup launched in 2010 to fill among the hole left by the state’s dwindling information sources. The Courant revealed the obit by Busemeyer later the identical day below a syndication settlement it has with the Mirror. Initially accessible, it is now behind a paywall.
The opposite obit was written by the Condon household. Along with showing on the Courant’s website, the household obit can be published on Legacy.com.
(Screenshot/The Hartford Courant)
Traditionally, obits have usually been described as one of many best-read sections of newspapers. And Poynter’s Kristen Hare has achieved intensive reporting on the value of obits to newspapers’ future.
Paid obits, usually written by and paid for by relations, have been boosting the sagging revenues of newspapers for a couple of decades. (The Courant expenses about $1,200 for an obit the size of the one submitted by the Condon household, with an additional cost for a photograph.) In 2019, Axios reported that greater than 1,000,000 paid obits have been producing $500 million yearly for newspapers, a small however important chunk of general promoting and circulation revenues then totaling about $25 billion a 12 months.
The media ecosystem round dying and dying is constant to evolve. Legacy.com reported earlier this year that it has generated $52 million for newspapers with a centralized obit portal, launched in 2022, that had positioned 110,000 obits in a lot of its 2,800 associate newspapers.
Column.us and Modulist.news are different corporations offering comparable companies to newspapers. (Column acquired Modulist earlier this 12 months.)
Within the obit revealed initially in The Connecticut Mirror and picked up later that day by the Courant, Busemeyer wrote:
Condon’s profession in journalism was nearly solely performed at The Hartford Courant, the place he began work in 1970 after a brief tour in Vietnam. He retired from The Courant on the finish of 2015 and wrote commonly for The Connecticut Mirror since then.
Condon was the uncommon journalist who was deeply revered and admired by colleagues, readers and elected officers alike. Former colleagues described him at varied factors in his profession as “The Courant’s Rock of Gibraltar,” the “wit and conscience” of The Courant and “a Connecticut establishment.” He gained award after award, together with the Yankee Quill and membership within the New England Newspaper Corridor of Fame, and the editorial he wrote on Dec. 14, 2012 after the Sandy Hook capturing was described as “a masterpiece.”
When Busemeyer succeeded Condon as chief editorial author on the Courant, he recalled Condon giving him just one piece of recommendation: “Do your individual reporting.”
So when Tom’s spouse, Anne, requested him to write down the obit, Busemeyer sat down with Tom and stated: “You need me to write down the obit, I’m going to must do my very own reporting.” They spoke for 2 hours.
The obit appeared within the Courant as a part of a content-sharing coverage that the Mirror depends on to syndicate its content material for a charge to for-profit corporations just like the Courant. The Courant is owned by Tribune Publishing and Alden International Capital, the funding fund that acquired Tribune in 2021. Nonprofit information organizations are invited to republish Mirror tales with out cost.
Mirror writer Bruce Putterman declined to say how a lot the Courant pays however stated the Mirror’s syndication charges vary from $50 a month for a for-profit hyperlocal web site to $2,000 for a a lot bigger operation.
He famous that the $40,000 a 12 months that the Mirror generates from its syndication service doesn’t signify a big share of its $3 million income funds. However he described the service as an necessary increase to the Mirror’s mission to “inform as many individuals as doable about what’s occurring of their state.”
Throughout North America, the Institute for Nonprofit Information stories that 347 of its members revealed their content material on about 15,000 different shops in 2023, roughly double the republication whole from the 12 months earlier than. Jonathan Kealing, INN’s chief community officer, says the 347 represents the portion of its 475 members that supplied knowledge to INN, so whole republication is probably going considerably greater.
Wisconsin Watch, a nonprofit launched in 2009, tracked 448 information organizations republishing or citing their work in 2023. That compares with 256 republications/cites in 2019. Based on managing editor Jim Malewitz, free republication serves the group’s mission of “informing individuals in Wisconsin to allow them to make good selections.”
A number of papers have introduced content-sharing arrangements with The Associated Press in current months.
In Connecticut, the Mirror’s Busemeyer stated he alerted the Courant to Condon’s dying shortly after he bought a name with the information from Anne. Busemeyer then phoned Courant government editor Helen Bennett and alerted her that his obit could be forthcoming later that day.
“They have been relieved,” Busemeyer stated of the Courant workers. “There’s no one left over there who knew Tom very effectively.”
(Screenshot/CT Mirror)
I emailed Bennett on the Courant with a number of questions on her choice to make use of the Mirror obit and, extra typically, in regards to the Courant’s use of Mirror tales. Her response: “Like many information orgs in Connecticut, we associate (with) the Mirror. As they’re a associate, we selected to make use of their story on Tom.”
I used to be just a few years behind Condon on the similar highschool and school and admired his work from afar for many years. Unaware of the most cancers he was coping with, I used to be shocked to not hear again from an e-mail I despatched him just a few months in the past.
I realized of his dying through e-mail from a pal who despatched alongside a hyperlink to the Mirror obituary because it appeared within the Courant. A few weeks later, she despatched me the hyperlink to at least one extra occasion of Condon’s story spreading throughout digital media: the link to an appreciation by Lisa McGinley, a member of the editorial board at The Day in New London, the place Condon grew up and went to highschool.
I wasn’t capable of get to Tom’s funeral in Hartford, however The Franciscan Middle for City Ministry livestreamed the service. Its YouTube recording has attracted greater than 300 views.
In his eulogy, Condon’s brother, Garret, recalled a current dialog:
“Tom stated, ‘I’ve had such an important life, I want I may will it to any person.”
He might not have found out a approach to “will” his life to any person, however his family and friends did discover efficient methods of sharing it.
As Garret stated from the pulpit in concluding his remarks: “Tom, you needed to discover a approach to pay all of it ahead, a means for us to inherit the goodness of your life. Go searching. You probably did it.”
