Decatur Daily shutting down press

Looks like they're moving the operation to Florence, where The Daily recently purchased TimesDaily from New York Times Reg. People losing jobs is always sad, including those in the press room. But I wonder how this will affect the daily operations of both papers? It's about a 50-60 min. drive from Florence to Decatur.

http://decaturdaily.com/detail/44531.html

 

Expect the deadline to move up accordingly.

 

Does Decatur even have deadlines?

 

" ... recent addition of a center in Decatur to handle TimesDaily customer service calls previously directed to Manila, Philippines."

Papers having call centers located in proximity to the area it covers? Bullshit, I tell you.

 

It doesn't take an hour to get from Decatur to Florence. Maybe 30-40 minutes.

Florence is more prone to icing over during severe winter storms. When Decatur misses receiving the Daily because Florence is shut down, they may rethink this decision.

 

Not too many severe winter storms in Florence.

 

They're not annual occurrences, but the big one that hits every 3-4 years and turns the town into a slippery ice castle won't be fun for the paper's delivery people.

 

Agreed, but it doesn't happen enough to make it a relevant issue, in my opinion.

 

Thirty minutes? I can see 40 if you're drive 85 mph, but I don't think they're going to be running close to 30,000 newspapers in a Porsche GT2. Let's not forget all the red lights in Decatur, Muscle Shoals and Florence since both of these papers are located in downtown areas.

It'll take close to an hour for a paper truck to navigate through downtown Florence and across the river (about 10 min.), though cop-infested Muscle Shoals with it's incredibly slow speed limits (at least 10 min.), down Hwy. 20 (Yahoo maps says it's 43.9 miles, but it's a 30 min. drive) and through downtown Decatur (about 10 min.).

And ice storms? Are you serious. There hasn't been a severe ice storm in north Alabama in over a decade, and that was a rarity. Hell, it only snows once every three or four years.

 

There's a lot more Florence-to-Decatur knowledge here than I would have guessed.

My question: who now gets the later deadlines, Florence or Decatur? You'd think it would be Florence, but since Decatur is on top of the food chain does it get printed last?

 

I think that's the big question. Florence going last makes more sense, but …

Regardless of what happens, one of the two will likely go to press at least an hour earlier than usual. If not, a lot of readers won't have a paper to go with their coffee and eggs.

 

The TimesDaily was owned an NYT Regional until recently. Not the TD's fault on the location of the call center