Why are only good things said in the newspaper about people that die?

Well, in the case of Obituaries, those are written by the families themselves. For articles, one thing is that they figure there's enough bad news (most of which is fictionalized, but still), so bringing the bad news about people is just beyond them. Also, they see it as disrespecting the dead to make them seem (even rightfully) as jerks. Of course why that last bit means anything to them is beyond me, when they don't bother to respect the living.

1. there dead you dont talk bad about them unless they were murderers or something really bad not just because they might be a jerk. 2. it is the deceased family that tells the newspaper writer what to write, they arent going to tell them anything bad. 3. even if the family did tell them something bad they wouldnt publish that because that would be bad 4 business 4 the newspaper

Newspapers offer obituaries for a price - that is they charge by the column size. The wonderful words that people write about their dead family comes from close relative and newspapers have a coach to help jog people into remembering the kids and famlily names and where the deceased went to school and where they worked and where they were born. Sometimes a kid gets shot to death, and his folks swear up and down that he wasn't a gang member, yeah yeah; and the TV shows where some high school football hero was killed, and of course, nobody says he was into drugs and such. Nobody wants to be saying bad things about their dead neighbors - it makes them sound bad.

just think about it, if you were an awful person, i actually don't know if you are or not, but if you were and you died would you want the newspapers to say that you were a jerk that nobody liked and only cared for yourself, of course not and don't lie to yourself and say that you would want them to, no one wants something bad said about them and your not about to say something horrible about someone who just died because maybe there is someone out there who cares about that person and doesn't think of them that way, it's mostly matter of opinion i guess

It's called respect for the dead. It's the classy thing to do. If the deceased was just an ****** and not not some mad-dog murderous scumbag, what's the point of bad-mouthing them? What does that accomplish? There is probably someone they left behind that knew them as a completely different person, and their feelings should be considered also. Think what you want, but if you go around trashing the dead just because they rubbed you the wrong way, be prepared for your own friends and family to hear what an intolerant turd you were if you die.

Respect for the ones left behind. If you can't say something nice...

not so. you have to distinguish between paid advertising and editorial content, ie articles written by one or more journalists for news use when the person dies. the natural tendency is for human beings to recall the good and temporarily forget about the bad when someone dies. at a reputable newspaper one has to resist that temptation when the deceased was ruthless, or criminal, or just plain unlucky or dumb. for some people in the news, that might have been their only claim to fame. this is not about an obit but a wedding: in the 1960s a reporter at a small southern local newspaper was leaving on bad terms and his final work was to write up a wedding. well, he wrote - and it was published, as nobody checked it before it was typeset and printed - about all the dirty laundry of the family - along these lines: the bride was pregnant, the bridegroom a lush, the mother was having an affair with the mayor etc etc etc. you won't find that sort of "honesty" any more. ps - just want to add that in the US there is a strange practice: depending on the family members to write the obits themselves. that simply does not happen in english or canadian papers. (saves the paper money but at the porice of objectivity and truthfulness. i have seen obits which omitted remarriages, children of remarriages or who had been in the deceased's bad books, etc) in canada and england paid adds carry the unedited words of family members. in london, the times carries on a quaint and charming practice of carrying not just the obit written by staffers, but also long letters/small articles sent in by people who knew the deceased, not all of which are flattering, but almost all of which are funny.

You don't want to kick someone when they are down. Being dead is about as down as you can get and bad words about the deceased would probably say more about you than the person who died. After all they can't defend themselves now can they? =)