Reporters delivering Boston Globe

We got back to our house late last night after spending the holidays in Florida with my mom. There were five days of home-delivered Globes on the front stoop. We had stopped delivery of the paper for December 23rd until tomorrow.

 

My first job in newspapers was delivering for the Washington Post when I was 16. It was a fun job for a teenager, but I couldn't imagine doing it full time. Basically worked from about 1-4 a.m. on weeknights and then had to do the Sunday inserts on Saturday afternoon, which was the worst part of the job. Could not imagine being a professional at one of these papers and doing than on top of my other work. Ridiculous.

 

Globe, distributor trade blame as delivery woes persist - The Boston Globe

 

Things will be fine in about four months. No big deal.

 

Lots of interesting things in the link — thanks, wicked.

1. Only 205,000 Sunday subscribers? For the Boston Globe?!?!?

2. The "just be patient, please — things will be sorted out in 4-6 months" is great stuff. Will readers who don't get the paper delivered have 4-6 months cut out of their subscription cost? I doubt it.

3. The quote at the end of the story — from Northeastern University journalism professor Dan Kennedy — was good, too: “But if this drags on and on, and large numbers of people cancel the print edition, it does become an existential threat. The print edition is where the money comes from.”

 

I should add that the Globe has let the print edition slide in subtler but noticeable ways before this fiasco. Case in point one. Late national scores such as Monday night NFL appear in my home delivered Times, but not my Globe. Papers are printed in same plant.
Case in point two. Comic strip Tank McNamara used to run on sports agate page. Now it is nowhere in print edition, but remains in comics section of Website. That's just odd,

 

When Gannett finally moved from "papers will be here for a long, long time" to focusing on the Web, this is the reason. Publishers are scared.

The fewer customers you have, the less attractive it is for the drivers. Either they have to take a longer route or get less money throwing fewer papers for the same route.

At some tipping point, maybe soon, you can't get people willing to do the job for the money.

 

In my day, and I'm sure it hasn't changed, 90 percent of Herald sales were newsstand sales. I couldn't get it delivered in my suburban town. Only works in a big city with mass transit, though.

 

In fairness, Coco, lots of the Sunday Globe sales are at the newsstand, IIRC. I'm pretty sure the Sunday circ is still above 300,000.

 

I can only imagine how big of an area you would need for a route of 200 papers in most areas. Had a 50 paper route as a kid and it was just around the neighborhood. Took about half-an-hour.

 

A number of subscribers questioned why workers who had long delivered their paper without issue had been let go. One hung a sign on her mailbox demanding that her old carrier be reinstated.

“The guy who delivered to us for years wrote a letter and said, ‘I want to deliver your paper, but the new firm [ACI] won’t even talk to me,’ ” said Michael Carakatsane of Lynnfield, who has subscribed to the Globe for 23 years. “For crying out loud, that’s terrible. . . . He knew the route, he knew the subscribers, and he knew where to leave the paper.”

 

This is another reason for the death of newspapers. Simply unacceptable, horrific delivery of the newspaper, horrific delivery of the PRODUCT, which people PAY FOR. Management for years has focused on the newsroom, bullying reporters and laying them off, making them work overtime (basically working 24/7 following breaking news for the Internet), and not paying them for it, meddling to the nth degree with meeting after meeting ... meanwhile simple issues such as delivery of the newspaper have turned to crap. The newsrooms actually have remained the strength of newspapers (though weaker than the glory years) even through the massive cuts and the firings of anybody who makes a decent wage. Meanwhile, the sales force has completely changed with sales people angering/irritating longtime customers by pushing internet ad sales when they don't want their damn ads on the internet. And not paying sales people squat and basically hiring the worst sales people around. If you are into sales you DO NOT work for a damn, lowpaying, clueless newspaper. Have you met the person in charge of your ad departments? Can you say CLUELESS? I'd give the print product two more years maximum, probably less. Gannett will probably start the parade by printing newspapers maybe 3 days a week and having all online content the other four days.