Inside the Newton distribution center where @BostonGlobe employees are assembling papers. pic.twitter.com/gHisVOvXC2
— Dan Kennedy (@dankennedy_nu) January 3, 2016
We’re only two days into the 2016 but — in what may prove to be one of the weirdest stories of the year — Boston Globe reporters and editors are being asked to volunteer to help deliver the Sunday Globe to Newton residents tomorrow, the Boston Business Journal reports.
Steeves’ email directed all volunteers to meet at 15 Riverdale Avenue in Newton at 12 a.m. Sunday to help deliver that morning’s paper. He cited a particular need for delivery support in the Newton area.
“Globe employees will need to be two per car. Please have proof of driver’s license and registration,” Steeves wrote. He said each team will be given a specific newspaper route and delivery instructions. He also urged them to come equipped with the basic tools of the trade.
Dan Kennedy’s Media Nation blog has the full email that was sent by the union asking for help and you more about this here.
Glad my subscription’s digital!
Lively discussion on the announcement at UniversalHub
http://www.universalhub.com/2016/globe-editors-and-reporters-volunteer-delivery
The odd thing is if you read the comments on Universal Hub and Media Nation, you’ll see that this problem exists across Greater Boston. It’s odd — flattering but odd — that they’re just focused on Newton. Perhaps we should all leave out some milk and cookies for them.
The new delivery service fortunately hired our old carrier so we haven’t missed a beat. There are some pockets of excellent service:)
I have the Globe and Herald delivered. I didn’t receive the Globe on Monday or Tuesday, then got two on Wednesday. While I seem to be back on the delivery route for the Globe, I haven’t received the Herald the past two days. Did the Herald switch delivery services, too? For a while the broadsheet and the tabloid used the same delivery service.
I only get the Sunday Globe. Last week’s came with Globe South instead of Globe West. Is that part of the same problem? All very weird indeed.
No normal delivery all week…..on Tuesday at noon I got Tuesday’s paper and Monday’s paper……today I got my Sunday paper under my car. It seems that the majority of subscribers were affected but yet nothing from Management. The reporters delivered today’s paper, which I find pathetic, since the new company is getting paid while the reporters volunteered.m
We might need the reporters out there every day — Globe was right at my doorstep, instead of the end of the driveway. Still no Herald, though.
Haven’t had our Globe delivery all week, though after hearing yesterday about the pathetic reporters-as-newsboys scheme, we left the porch light on all night, but to no avail. Thought the disease had spread when the Times wasn’t there this morning either, but that one was merely delayed (old service, new driver). Meanwhile, got butter on the iPad trying to adapt new technology to lifelong habit of reading the paper at the breakfast table. Text messages inform us that the Globe might be “late.” The Globe is going to be late, all right, as in dead, if they don’t get this worked out PDQ.
I received no paper on Monday, and the deliveries since then have been 3-4 hours later than “normal.”
Weirdly, I had reported the paper as not received on Monday, and when Friday’s hadn’t shown up by 10:00 AM on Friday, I tried to use their module to report a missing paper, and the system said I’d already reported it. I guess you can only report one missing paper per week?
I can understand their having jettisoned the old vendor [papers too often not received], but they shouldn’t have introduced the new one until sure they were ready.
We got ours. Plus a note from the two reporters who dropped it on our front steps.
I hope one of these reporters has the time to write an insider story about why this got so messed up.
We experienced three days when the Globe either didn’t get delivered or was delivered too late to read it. The past few days, though, the paper was dropped right at the front door.
We saw a paper being dropped off around 4:30 this evening.
Serendipity! – I had to go to Orlando for work for a week and my wife and daughter went to Ireland. We forgot to cancel the newspaper during our absence. No problem, we didn’t have any deliveries all week. I got back late last night and my Sunday paper was waiting outside the door this morning. Dumb luck rules!
In an industry that is already seriously ill, this seems like a serious self inflicted wound for the Globe.
Greg made HuffPost! http://m.huffpost.com/us/entry/5689426ee4b06fa688829c3a
UPDATE – it is going to take 4-6 months to fix. So, we had a family meeting. The four of us (me, my husband, my 8th grader and my 4th grader) all read the paper every morning. . . . we discuss news articles and my daughter does the Soduko. . . . So, we brought it up this morning – no morning paper again. Do we as a family continue to pay for the paper Globe for 4-6 months while the company sorts this out, or do we switch to digital, and after camp, start the paper version again.
While my kids lose out the most (they don’t have ipads and have limited screen time) by not having the paper, we decided to do digital. After breakfast they can read the Globe on my ipad, but not during breakfast. If our neighbors continue on with Globe deliveries, we will start the paper version again, once their newspapers come on time every day.
It is a sad day for our house, but we agreed as a family that we can’t waste our hard earned money on a promise.
But @Newton Mom you get a digital subscription at no added charge with home delivery and don’t have to pay anything if you don’t get actual delivery (use the app to report a missing paper and you get credit). So continuing as a home subscriber at worst means free online delivery and, at best, gives you and your family both.
I suppose we should have seen it coming. Despite one of the greatest days of self-congratulatory tweets, the Globe couldn’t pull off a two-day streak of deliveries. (Still no Herald, either.) I guess they pulled a muscle patting themselves on the back.
If NewtonMom is correct, and it’s going to take 4-6 months to fix, that is absolutely ridiculous. Did they do no vetting of the new vendor whatsoever? I don’t think they could have done a better job shooting themselves in the foot had they tried. Remember, it’s not just us few home delivery saps. It’s the advertisers who are paying to reach us, who are getting angry.
When they do the sequel to “Spotlight” on the demise of the Globe, should they call it “Flashlight” in reference to the daring folks who delivered yesterday?
@Dan: For the record, the Herald is still delivered by the company that used to deliver both the Globe and the Herald, not the new Globe distributor. We were fortunate enough to get both papers by 5:30 a.m. today.
Greg,
I can’t have the paper Globes delivered while there is no one home. That is a big ad to thieves that no one is home. If they can’t get me the paper by 7 AM (actually by 6 AM), I can’t do paper.
https://www.bostonglobe.com/business/2016/01/03/deliveries/wrEYnoz9F6XFEZeIkTzMQL/story.html
Thanks, Greg. That was my understanding, which is why I’m confused as to why the Herald hasn’t been delivered. It’s been four days now. I’ll never be able to figure out what’s going on in the Phantom now.
Neither paper is here yet (after 9am).
I got mine.
I don’t get the “paper” paper, just the eversion; I just wanted to chime in to say, regardless 0f what caused the situation, I really like the movie title “Flashlight,” for the exposé.
Receives the Globe around 10am. Not great but it’ll work, given the situation. Still no Herald, though.
I hadn’t given this too much thought for myself, as I am a digital subscriber- so I gave it no more thought when my print Globe (and Times) were where they always are Sunday morning (I slept in a tad, so no idea if they were late). It only occurred to me today that I might have been affected, but was not.
Side note: In all the photos of reporters preparing to deliver the paper I have seen, they are smiling. I should think they would be as nonplussed as customers and advertisers must
@Doug – while I’m sure they are, they also know enough to smile for the camera. Plus, it started out as a fun bonding experience of sorts as Kevin Cullen recounts:
http://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2016/01/03/the-globe-here/m6CG7N8XTUjkdsh5GNfglN/story.html
No Globe again, and suddenly no Times either. Though the latter hasn’t changed distributors, we were informed a month ago that our regular driver would no longer be working this route after the first of the year. Naively we assumed that someone else would be working the route. Apparently not. Or else there’s a new driver on a slow learning curve. Whatever the reason, we have now paid in advance for two separate newspapers that aren’t being delivered by two separate distributors, and have two separate customer service departments to inform every day that we remain customers who aren’t being served. What rabbit hole this information disappears into I have no idea, but it has no visible effect on the problem. Since the Globe’s new distributor faces no performance penalties for the first three months of the contract, we can no doubt expect that snafu to last till spring. In an election year, of all times, when reliable sources of news are especially necessary. If anyone has actually succeeded in getting through to a human, I’d love to know how the conversation went.
Sigh. I have my paper but I want everyone else to have their papers too. It should be a community read!
It should certainly be required reading among the decision-making geniuses at the papers. According to the article in today’s Globe, a newspaper delivery job pays a chintzy $10-$12 an hour. A labor study reported recently found that the leading factor in the ability of most Americans to find a decently paying job is reliable access to a car. So staking the future of your business on the chance that a new distributor can enter an already functioning market and find an additional four hundred or so car-owning people willing to work at the low end of that scale strikes me as a really stupid bet.
The article did indicate they had hired some existing drivers from the prior vendor.
I can understand there being a new driver learning curve as a short term issue but not having enough drivers before implementing the changeover is just bad management, both on the Glibe and on the vendor
We are not Globe subscribers, but have received the paper the entire week! Not sure what’s going on.