In the newspaper business, politicians have long been considered to be poor credit risks. Many candidates plan to pay for their campaign with the money obtained after winning an election. When they don’t win, donors don’t contribute to the candidate’s campaign coffers and bills go unpaid. Consequently, politicians are often required to pay their bills in advance.

I’ve considered funeral homes to be good credit risks and have generally not required out-of-town funeral homes to prepay for purchases.

With the pandemic reducing this newspaper’s advertising sales, we have been tryin...