When The Beijing News overhauled its layout earlier this spring, it added a new weekly feature – a single-page section entitled “Deceased” that runs every Tuesday.
The page is modeled on western obituary sections, and partership logos were added recently for both Sohu.com and Netor, an online memorial service that is occasionally mentioned in the international press. Acccording to Netor, obituaries are nearly nonexistent in domestic newspapers, and this is an attempt to fill that gap. The deceased all lived in Beijing, and they range from children to college students to the elderly.
The printed layout is a single page with no advertisements, and Netor’s online memorial halls show similar restraint. As for Sohu, while its main obituary page is ad-free, the linked content is immersed in ads and thumbnail links to galleries of girlie pics.
Links and Sources:
The Beijing News Obituaries [Chinese]; a PDF of the page linked above is here.
Sohu Obituaries [Chinese]; Netor [Bilingual]
Time Asia article on Netor from 2000.