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For some Globe readers, a new year starts like the old one ended: With no paper
By adamg on Fri, 01/01/2016 - 11:29am
The Globe says it's gotten that no-paper thing down to just 5% of its home subscribers. It probably counts itself lucky that many of those are loyal readers who are complaining instead of just giving up - although who can tell, given complaints about how it's impossible to get through to Circulation to cancel these days.
@bostonglobe @kelleratlarge @dankennedy_nu @universalhub Day 5 no paper - still believe it's only a 5% issue? I don't
— Emily Rooney (@EmilyRooneyWGBH) January 1, 2016
@EmilyRooneyWGBH @dankennedy_nu @BostonGlobe @kelleratlarge @universalhub JWH ($100m in): "Hanley's shortstop arm can reach any front porch"
— André Mayer (@havhmayer) January 1, 2016
@EmilyRooneyWGBH @dankennedy_nu @BostonGlobe @kelleratlarge @universalhub no papers in Needham. Ruins the morning!
— Mimi Wishner Segel (@MimiSegelNECN) January 1, 2016
@EmilyRooneyWGBH @universalhub @BostonGlobe @kelleratlarge @dankennedy_nu Day 5 in Readville. We are Hostages. Call in the FBI!
— Helen Bender (@msshush) January 1, 2016
@EmilyRooneyWGBH @BostonGlobe @kelleratlarge @dankennedy_nu @universalhub day 5 of no paper in Southie
— Mo (@chartularia) January 1, 2016
Steve Garfield in Jamaica Plain IS getting his paper, more or less:
New game for 2016: Find the Boston Globe! pic.twitter.com/aIEkm8m6hz
— Steve Garfield (@stevegarfield) January 1, 2016
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Comments
If only Globe Direct delivery were so unreliable
that would make a much larger "subscriber" population happy for 2016.
The Globe hasn't been a "paper"
in years.
Cheap new distributer cutting corners
I think this post from the channel 4 website has the clue about what's really going on: "Spoke with old delivery person. This was not done to improve service -new outfit offered him the same job. They just wanted to pay him $0.02 less for every paper delivered. And asked him to drive to Waltham to pick up papers instead of Westwood."
It looks like this is what happened. New delivery company comes in, "streamlines" distribution to a warehouse that's close to a lot of customers. But...where do the carriers live? My most recent carriers lived in Hyde Park and Dorchester. They now have to drive (their already abused cars) twice as far to the warehouse, doubling the time and distance for their ungodly early pickup. And, say they have a 200 paper route, 1400 papers/week *.02 = $28 pay cut. No wonder they didn't stay with the new abusive company! No wonder they've been putting stickers on my newspaper for weeks begging for carriers!
Meanwhile, what are the towns surrounding the lovely new distribution center in Waltham? Weston, Lincoln, Newton, Wellesley, Belmont. Not a lot of potential 3AM newspaper-delivery independent contractors living in these towns. Somebody at the Globe should have thought this over before they gave the new guys free reign to destroy their home-delivery system.
What makes you think I'm getting service?
I live in a "low rent" section of Lincoln (condo development). I haven't seen the paper all week. My former carrier lives in the southern end of Framingham -- not sure what's happened to him, but a $28/week pay cut would surely hurt.
When is John Henry going to do the decent thing and put up a video on the web site to apologize and level with the customers?
("Somebody at the Globe
("Somebody at the Globe should have thought this over before they gave the new guys free reign to destroy their home-delivery system.")
Believe me, Mark, somebody DID think this over LONG before Henry bought the "Glob" and long before ANYONE received "free reign" over delivery ("Free reign??!! LOL LOL LOL!!!). Sorry to break the truth to you, but....This was/is a PLANNED screwing: Get the subscription $$ from you every month, give you crap in return, promise you the world, that they'll "make it up to you", string you along, get more subscription $$ from you (minus a few bucks in "credits" for the brutal delivery service), screw you again, then again, then make MORE promises that they'll "fix the problem", offer the "suckers" more credits, more free papers, get them to pay another month, then another, for horrendous service....and the brain trust at the "Glob", the very same people you think are "idiots" etc actually knew exactly what they were doing, and that, for the most part, people will put up with sucky service and keep the same paper out of "tradition", their Dad and Granddad always read the GLOBE etc etc...
Then, when you (and hundreds of thousands of other subscribers to the "printed version" are "finally fed up with this crap" and decide to switch in mid 2016 (August or September, at the latest according to sources), the "Glob" is gonna magically offer you "THE REST OF THE YEAR FOR ONLY FIVE BUCKS A MONTH"...Wow! Think of the tremendous savings!!...Then the same crap will keep happening and they know you'll hang on and keep paying cuz in your liberal, well-to-do town(s) NOBODY reads the Herald! God Forbid! They're endorsing...Trump!! And you're a Hillary fool. so you'll stick with the "Glob" til your 5 bucks a month deal expires, as the year 2016 expires.
Your New Years 2017 resolution? "Drop the "Glob" and, begrudgingly, order the H...the H...the HERALD!!l But wait,the Herald is by then 100% ONLINE. There will be no printed version, and then, lo and behold: The "Glob" is exclusively online also! No more printed versions of EITHER major Boston daily! But...BUT..as a "longtime, loyal subscriber" to the daily subscription REAMING by the "Glob", and as a way to "start the slate clean with you", you're gonna get the "GLOB" ONLINE FOR ONLY FIVE BUCKS A MONTH, which will be "Only 30% of the regular monthly cost"!!!!! WOW!!! The savings!!!
It's all - and I mean ALL - part of the "Henry plan"!!!.... (think about it: when was the last time he was an "idiot" who "didn't know what he was doing, investment wise??".....
Ask me how I know.
I'm scared
I don't want to know how you know. I think it has something to do with the contrails and the government controlling the weather.
Works either way in this case
Of course he meant "free rein", but free reign means pretty much the same thing in this context.
Where it didn't work? This flyer we got for an election.
non delivery
So we should picket both the Globe and John Henry's house. Our demands:
- Involve the delivery workers in all decisions concerning their work.
- Open new distribution center in Dorchester, Roxbury, or Hyde Park, close to where the delivery workers live.
- Give delivery workers a decent raise, and issue a public apology for this disaster.
- Full disclosure of all the facts surrounding this disaster.
- You all add to this.
Any other actions we can come up with?
"Paper" newspaper?
5%, what's that, like a single subscriber? Two?
I got to talk to my delivery guy this morning
He was by the house at around 10. Obviously, I just wished him a happy new year, since he had papers to deliver.
I do know I'm lucky. I got the paper 4 out of 5 days this week. Of course, the day I missed was the day they include the ads.
I'm getting the paper delivered, but not where it belongs
Until last week, the Globe and other delivered newspapers were always left in our apartment building's entry foyer, safe from rain, snow, wind, and other elements. Now, the delivery agent is throwing the Globe onto the walkway, or worse, into the (sometimes snowy or wet) front yard.
Globe, 0 for 5
And today no NYTimes. Maybe they should start communicating honestly with their customers. These aren't merely delays, they have no one in place to make the deliveries. Whatever VP made this decision should spend the next year working as a home deliverer. At the delivers pay scale.
0 for 6!
So true, why can't they just tell us what's going on?
It's pretty clear that the old delivery people quit and the new company has not hired enough people.
Seems it would be easier for the Globe to just let us know they can't deliver to us anymore - we'd stop trying to report the problem and free up their customer service people.
And yet, still no Herald coverage
John Carroll notes the oddity of that. Remember when the Herald would go out of its way to bash the Globe?
Part of the agreement to have
Part of the agreement to have the Globe print the Herald on the Globe's printing presses (to save the Herald huge $$ on print cost and add needed cash flow revenue to John Henry's investment in the Globe) was a very "quiet" agreement that they reached....Do the "nice nice" and stop the bickering....Hasn't anyone else noticed that neither one bashes the other anymore? (except Howie Carr, who has so much $$ now that he could give a bleep as to who he pisses off with sarcastic comments and rips).....This was all supposed to be "on the Q-T"....(nobody was supposed to know about this "Bromance")...
Ask me how I know.
OK, I'll bite
How do you know?
My convenience store...
I'm an old, old fashioned guy -- I still buy the paper every morning at a local store, instead of getting home delivery. (It gives me an excuse to get out of the house every morning; if I have a morning appointment, I usually buy the paper en route and read it on the T.)
By the time I got to the store this morning, they were completely out of Globes, Heralds, Times, everything except a couple of New York Posts. Clerk blamed it on all the home delivery customers who were coming to the store to buy it. And yes, they did have a sign saying they weren't taking the coupons.
Paper? What's that??
Huh?...Who the hell "reads the paper" anymore? Don't internet much? Smartphone?...(I suppose you still go to Adult Video Store and rent porn movies too, instead of watching online?) ..All sarcasm aside, though, who even bothers getting the paper delivered these days? ...My mother is almost 80 and even SHE reads the Herald online!!...Home delivery of a rag? By the time you are reading it, ten to twelve hours after it was printed and trucked from Western Massachusetts to the Boston area, half of the world leaders mentioned in it are already dead or out of office, and the guy who's listed as scoring the winning goal for the Bruins has already been traded to the Blackhawks....What a phenomenal waste of cash, getting a newspaper delivered!!
Just sayin'
What do you spend your money on?
List some of the things so the rest of us can spend some time ripping you to shreds for your stupid waste of money.
I get why newspaper circulation has been dropping for decades now, I obviously earn my living online these days, but, really, Mr. Lives in a Glass House, people spending money on the Globe annoys you that much? In any case, the real issue is not how people are spending their money but the fact they are spending their money on something they are not getting, so it's really more of a consumer-protection issue than value-judgment time.
As for where I'm coming from, we gave up the daily paper several years ago because none of us was reading it. But we still get the Sunday paper (we'll see what happens in a couple days) because we enjoy reading it over Sunday breakfast. Sorry, kid, reading Globe stories on a smartphone at breakfast is just not the same (especially long pieces), let alone browsing coupons or doing the crossword. But, hey, to each his own.
Amen
Thanks Adam.
Here's a summary of parts of my day
Wake up, go downstairs, grab the Globe (well, up to this week) and look at the section front pages while eating my Lucky Charms.
I grab a Metro and buy a Herald at Forest Hills. I can get through the Herald sports section on the way in, and I breeze through the Metro (mainly the sudoku) on the crapper before starting work.
On my morning break, I read the news section of the Herald, except the comics, which I read, along with doing their sudoku, at lunch.
When I get home, I like to lounge on the recliner with the Globe. Yes, 12 hours has passed since it went to press and probably 24 hours has passed since the stories were written, but in theory the stories are allowed to have a context that the 24/7 news outlets don't have the time to do. For example, both real dailies sometimes tell us about murder victims while TV forgets them after a day.
And why print? I like the tactile experience. I like that I am exposed to stories I would otherwise miss in the personalized online world. And yes, there are the digital versions, but I will pass on going completely that route until I have a reader the dimensions of a tabloid I can bring to the restroom.
The paper experience
I stopped newspaper delivery for a while a few years ago when the Globe finally started up its e-edition. (It took forever for that to happen.) For a year or so, I tried reading all my news online, but after a while I noticed how much I was missing. It actually takes longer. You have no idea which stories are more in-depth or higher priority because they all have the same appearance. You are constantly distracted by email and links and flashing ads and the desire to Google every random thought that pops into your head. Every news story finishes with comments that usually devolve into knuckle-dragging idiots who all know and hate each other. There's so much "breaking news" that you have much less time to put anything into context.
Of course I still read a lot of news online (I'm here, after all), but the daily printed paper is an intelligent relief from all that.
BOSTON GLOBE
Be nice if they could tell us where thst 5% is located