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

My paper did away with kid carriers, but that was because people were wanting the paper earlier in the morning, like 4:30. It's a heavy commuter area and people want to read it before their two-hour commute.

 

This is coincidental, but circulations have taken big hits since kids have been ditched as carriers. Service has fallen dramatically, causing people to stop subscribing. Luckily, the service on my parents' route hasn't. (We've known the current guy long before he and his sons were doing the route.)

As to why an afternoon paper would feel it necessary to ditch kid carriers, I have no clue. Definitely shouldn't be a safety issue there.

 

Shouldn't be...but "liability" was the reason for switching to adults. And then our service fell off and we had some subscriptions cancelled. Maybe it's not a coincidence.

 

I meant the part about big hits related to circulation. Kid delivery stopped in many places in the 1990s (that's when The Boston Globe ditched youth carriers), not long before the rise of the Internet.

I'm sure there is some connection, though, to the switch from youth carriers to motor carriers. The pool of people who are up at 3 a.m. and want to deliver newspapers can be undesirable.

 

In this town, some of the people available at 3 p.m. aren't that much more desireable.
=oD
(unfortunately, it's true)

 

I was at a small daily (no Sunday), about 9K circ. (although I think it was actually less than that).

It was delivered in the mail. We had to put the paper to bed by 11pm, so the driver could make it to the mother paper about 30-40 minutes away. Eventually they got a T1 line, but the driver still took pasteups down as a backup.

Anyway, he'd bring the papers back to the post office. I don't think I ever got my paper before 1pm or so when the mail came.

They were fairly easy going if we missed deadline by a little, especially after the T1 line was installed and especially for Saturday's paper.

They still sold the paper in boxes and in stores, but the only home delivery was via mail.

 

I remember the Journals in the D.C. suburbs were mailed before the Examiner enveloped them.

 

IT IS THE WORST!!!!

You work six days a week, because the mail is delivered six days. But you work days like thanksgiving because they deliver the next day, same with XMas. This was bad for me since I was a preps reporter. So I had to cover for my bosses who screwed me over.

Also.... real late deadline. It sucks. I used to have to stay till 2 am to wait for my proofs to get done, but I had to be in by 3 some days to grab the camera so i could go shoot photos for a 3:30 event. Makes for a real long week.

 

I had a paper route when I was a kid. I was supposed to go to 2,000 houses. Or two dumpsters. -- Mitch

 

We'll be five because we won't publish Mondays. However, I hadn't thought about Thanksgiving and Xmas nights. I usually take a vacation at Xmas (when things grind to a halt), so that will only be a problem for the guy who has to come over from news to fill in.

Also, I'm not worried about a late deadline. I'm a night owl. I'd prefer a 1 or 2 a.m. deadline to make sure everything that needs to gets in gets in. My concern is that they're going to make my deadline excessively early. When the publisher first talked to me, she was talking 8 p.m. Tue, Wed, Thur and Fri but maybe allowing a later time for the Saturday edition during football and basketball season (until I reminded her that they play basketall on Tuesdays and Wednesdays out here).

I still think it could be 10 p.m. And I've been coming into the office after home games to "practice" getting down by 10 (impossible), 11 (probable on a very light night) and midnight (the minimum I think I'd actually need).

There is only me here. If I get sick, there is no Plan B. As far as I know, there will be no one staying around to help me. I don't get to have a stringer now and since this is all centered around saving money, I'm sure I'm not going to get one now.

But what I wanted to know when I posted the original question was: who does it and does it work? It looks like so far there are only three examples. One does it OK. One does it well. One totally sucks.

Yeah...the resumes start going around tomorrow.

 

sounds like another step in the wrong direction to me.

 

When I lived in Arizona I would have rather had my paper come via mail. Just because the jerk delivery kid would throw the paper directly at the only window of my studio apt. Imagine being woken up 3-4 times a week with a huge thud. I tried to complain but got little help. Maybe it was b/c I was working for the paper being delivered and was getting it free of charge. I should have just dicontinued service. It's not like I didn't pick up the paper everyday when I went into work.