My household subscribes to four daily newspapers. No, I'm not talking about on-line, iPad or Kindle subscriptions. These are the conventional paper versions.
Maybe I am old-fashioned, but yes, I still like to read newspapers in the flesh, so to speak, ink on paper, with the pages spread out on my breakfast table and a mug of coffee within reach.
I'm afraid, however, that our newspaper delivery service is forcing me to change my morning reading habits and switch to the electronic versions. That’s not to say I’m not current with technology, unable or unwilling to get my news on-line. It’s just that this old habit of mine—born as a one-time newspaper reporter and editor—is dying hard. The habit’s demise, however, is being aided and abetted by those who can least afford the loss of the business of such a faithful patron.
A single service delivers all the morning papers here, which for us includes the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Boston Herald and Boston Globe.
I'm an early riser, usually up and about by 5:00 or 5:30 a.m. I like to have my newspapers shortly thereafter. For many years, I relied on a conscientious carrier who rarely failed to put the papers on my front porch before 5. Often, the thump of the papers woke me.
Unfortunately, the guy who's been delivering my papers the past year or so can't seem to get them on my porch (or anywhere near it) before 6:30—sometimes as late as 7:00 or even 7:30.
And the convenient porch deliveries, which I have tried to encourage via monthly cash tips, often fall short. So I am forced to pad down the driveway in slippered feet to retrieve the papers.
While I await my tardy newsprint, I peruse said papers’ offerings on-line with my laptop computer. It has gotten so common lately and I have become so accustomed to the on-line versions that by the time the papers are delivered, I will have already read my favorite columnists and the main news of the day. The web even enables me to finish the daily crossword puzzles. So when the hard copies arrive, they often go straight to the recycling bin unopened as I head off to start my day.
I'm sure it's not their intention, but what the delivery service is doing is helping increase my comfort level with reading their products on-line and alienating me from the print versions. They are furthering that by continually bumping up their prices of the delivered products. I see the day coming soon when cancellation of all newspaper deliveries will be an easy decision.
I hate to do it, but it seems inevitable. The Times will likely go first—not only because it is the most expensive of the four, but also because it long ago ceased being “the paper of record,” instead becoming the most partisan voice in American news media, with all the news fit to spin and slant. The Wall Street Journal is my favorite of the four. But as a long-time on-line subscriber, that will likely be the easiest print version to forego.
In truth, this blog entry started life as a letter to the news delivery service as an attempt to get them to improve their service. However, I could not find any means of contacting them. They remain stubbornly anonymous and unreachable. The proffered phone number leads to a frustrating daisy chain of pre-recorded choices—but no human being—and there is no available street address for snail mail. Instead, I vent here.
It does seem ironic in the midst of a weak economy that a business would apparently be going out of its way to provide poor service and not give its customers a way to help them correct that, especially in light of the emerging technologies that are making their product increasingly irrelevant. It’s their loss, and our gain.
If this is the experience of such a die-hard newspaper fan as me, what must be the effect of such treatment on its more casual customers? Likely they have far less patience than I.
The recent flood tide of newspaper failures seems to have crested. But is this experience of mine foretelling the next wave of multiplying folded dailies? It’s a safe bet, if you ask me.
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