Who here works for a daily paper that delivers ONLY in the mail?

I ask because that looks like what my paper is about to become. We're going from M-F afternoon/Sun. morning to Tu-Sa mornings.

The reason for going all mail (even if you live across the street from our office, you're getting your paper in the mail) is to dump the carriers, who are the source of so many complaints our circulation director can't do anything else.....oh, and to save supposedly around $20K a year. : (This wasn't an issue when we had kids doing routes; then for "liability reasons," they switched to adult contract labor and, geeze, all of a sudden, we've got a bunch of fuck-ups throwing papers...hmmmmm)

Now I was told by our publisher that this morning paper, mail-only concept has been working in other places. But she didn't cite examples.

The press is 20 miles away, meaning I'll have to send the pages over via Internet...if it's not down that night because our IP sucks. And then hopefully nothing else goes wrong because, supposedly, the papers have to be at the post office by 4:30 a.m. or else the post office won't deliver them that day.

(It won't be a morning paper in my neighborhood because I've not ever noticed the mail reaching my house before noon...)

So, ladies and gentlemen of the forum, have you ever heard of a daily, morning, mail-only paper? If so, which ones?

 

I have never really heard of a daily anything being delievered while I am eating breakfast at 7am. I have come home at 4am and actually walked into my house as the adult delivery people arrive with my LA Times.

I have also never heard of a rapid response by a post office, where they would get the paper, sort and then deliver the mail in a 4-5 hour period.

I know this can't work in a metro area, but possibly in a small town i.e. Santa Barbara, Barstow etc.

 

Is this the new Gannett innovation?

 

The Wayne County News (W.Va) delivers its daily papers via the post office. It's not the perfect situation, but they make it work.

 

The solution to me seems clear: Fire the fuck-ups throwing the routes. Hire better people. If that doesn't work, fire the person that keeps hiring the fuck-ups.

 

Good idea, but finding people to be carriers is difficult. It's a part-time job with shitty hours. The price of gas isn't making it easy either.

 

Good grief, you are about to enter the Nightmare Zone.

I was at a weekly which was mail delivery and newsstands. While our home post office was good to us, other post offices were horrible.

Your paper should take FB's advice.

 

That's gonna work real well on Thanksgiving Day...

 

With a daily, the 'charge-backs' (I don't remember the correct term, but the post office charges you for undelivered papers that don't have a forwarding order) could become very costly. The paper could raise its compensation for carriers and still come out ahead.

 

Is the world that much more dangerous since I delivered morning papers on my bike as a teenager?

 

The word is just as dangerous if not better then before, but the teenagers that are supposed to have this shitty job waking up at 6am are to freaking lazy to do it. So we have to get adults, with cars to deliver the paper. I am from a small town in Norway, and they still have kids that deliver the paper and they are known in the neighborhood because of it. I used to deliver newspaper back when I was a kid and it is actually kinda fun.

 

We're a small paper. We still don't print on major holidays.

Not Gannett. Rust Communications.

And its not so much about the fuck-ups. Its about saving $20K a year. They've tried firing people and hiring new ones. It's just that the people who are willing to do this are not exactly the town's best people. Also, they didn't apparently pay a lot of them enough to cover the cost of gas as it is now.

We're ceasing Monday publication in part because a lot of postal holidays are on Monday and because the "mother ship" paper has never printed on Monday. That way the office and the press doesn't have to be staffed on Sunday.

I'm predicting we lose several hundred subs in the first few months. We just screwed with their TV guide and our readers HATE it. Now we're going to screw with their entire paper.

Or as one of my friends said to me the other day: "Do you know anyone who gets their mail before 7 a.m.? You're still going to be an afternoon paper because that's when most people are going to see it. You'll just be an extra day behind."

At this point, it's possible my deadline could be as early as 8 p.m., especially in the spring and summer. The exception, from what they've told me, would be for the Saturday paper so that people wouldn't have to wait until Tuesday to read about Friday's big football game.

A few years ago, when we still printed our own Saturday morning paper (before we combo'd with the "mother ship" for a Sunday ed.), the new publisher decided to have it on the press at 5 p.m. Friday. No exceptions. So Friday games didn't get in until Monday. We had a competitor down the road and people were switching to them so they could read about our school's team without having to wait.

I kind of want to be here the first week or so and then have everything ready so I can bail when the shit hits the fan.