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Thank God we're a two-pundit town, Globe home-delivery edition
By adamg on Wed, 01/06/2016 - 2:09pm
UPDATE: John Henry vs. Emily Rooney.
With the timid tabloid completely abdicating its responsibility to snark the Globe upside the head, we're lucky to have two fine local pundits to give us dueling views of the latest in the home-delivery crisis: John Henry's apology.
Dan Kennedy at WGBH cautiously accepts Henry's apology for the screw up and says that when coupled with the semi-return of the old delivery company, it should put matters behind us:
Yes, his apology is a little bit defensive (blaming previous ownership for getting rid of the in-house delivery system) and a little bit geeky (no, we don’t care if the paper is “6 inches to the right of the first step”). But he struck me as genuinely, truly contrite that he had let down his customers.
David Bernstein, who splits his time between 'GBH and Boston Magazine, though, is having none of it, calling the Henry op-ed piece stunning for its revelation of completely cluelessness at Morrissey Boulevard. He tears into "Johnny" for pretty much everything, from the way nobody at the Globe thought to test the new vendor's proposed delivery routes to Henry laying some blame on the New York Times for a decision made back in 2001 - and on readers for wanting their papers "6 inches to the right of the first step:"
Wait wait wait wait wait - this is what Henry thinks they underestimated??? Holy sweet Yeezus. I mean, what the serious everloving fuck. First of all: yes, Mr. Newspaper Owner/Publisher, the people who have paid to have your product delivered to their house before they leave for work in fact want your product delivered to their house before they leave for work, the crazy bastards. (I would have thought somebody at the Globe would have made a note about this bizarre expectation at some point in the past 150 years.) Secondly: I am fairly confident that the people who sat on hold trying to get through to your customer service line were not waiting to tell you how many inches the paper was from their step.
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Comments
Given that the Herald relies
on the Globe's printing presses for printing of their papers, it's not surprising they wouldn't mock the Globe's current delivery problems.
Which, if true, is disturbing
The two papers need to keep each other honest, especially when a paper is owned by wealthy businessman who has business in the city and with the government that the paper is supposed to be watchdogging.
I agree
The Herald does not need to flash the Globe's delivery failures across the front page, or have Howie Carr mock the bow-tied bum kissers for a zillionth time, but they could at least report on it in their business section. It was a business failure of epic proportions and the fact that the Herald hasn't even mentioned it is very alarming.
I wonder
If it's because the two papers share no common readers. I've never met a Herald reader who would read the Globe, or a Globe reader who'd be caught dead in public holding a Herald. Covering these problems wouldn't be much of a story for their readers, who wouldn't care because their paper of choice came on time, or the Globe's readers, who would do without a paper before buying a Herald.
Probably not
That's never stopped the Herald before. When (and granted, this is going back a few years now) Boston Metro was starting up and it turned out the Globe/NY Times was a major investor, the Herald played some Metro-related scandal in Europe, which had nothing at all to do with Boston, on the front page for five days in a row. The Herald used to LOVE doing stories about declines in Globe circulation (conveniently omitting its own circulation drops) and, of course, Howie Carr came up with some nice little phrases to refer to the Globe, which he'd then use over and over and over again.
Could it be possible...
When the Globe agreed to start publishing the Herald they did so on the agreement that the Herald would lay off the negative press it gave the Globe? I hope that is not the case, but certainly would not be surprised if it were.
I'm a two paper guy
Heck, before I moved out on my own, it was me, the younger generation, subscribing to the Herald while ma got the Globe. I opted for Globe home delivery, but sometimes you need the other side of the story.
The sad thing is, the Herald failed to tell the other side.
I used to read both as well-
I used to read both as well- get Globe at work and Herald has really fallen off in recent years- has become a latter day version of the old Philadelphia Journal (for anyone who remembers that paper)
Also recall about 20 years ago when the Herald used to kind of sucker people on home delivery- had spotty arrival rate- when I literally lived up street from their Brighton delivery center- and was pain to cancel/ get billing stopped
Henry is a moron.
1. He talks about the fact that customers don't think about how hard it is to get the paper to them. They shouldn't have to.
2. He talks about windy roads etc etc... Things that have been in place for years. It's not like that is a surprise.
3. He provides insight into the immense stupidity that went into planning this transition....the routing software clearly wasn't tested well, the transition seemed to be a "big bang", not a gradual transition, there weren't enough drivers for the new company, the new company apparently didn't try hard enough ($$) to keep the old drivers for a period of time or even to hire them.
4. The thing that is hardest to believe is this logic:
a. People cancelling complain about delivery service of old company
b. Delivery service improvement plan doesn't yield results
c. Looks for a new delivery company (so far so good)
d. New company is much cheaper and will meet or exceed service goals! (They will also utilize Santa's sleigh to deliver all of the papers and the tooth fairy will put each person's paper under their pillow!)
I believe that this was a cost cutting move by the GLobe from the start, masquerading as a weak attempt to improve quality.
Next year starring for the Boston Red Sox, Ted Williams, Yaz and a unicorn, all on their original contract salaries!
A billionaire moron...
Yeah right.
A lot of people get lucky and
A lot of people get lucky and 'fail upward' in life.
You might want to look up Henry's story
He's no Donald Trump; he actually earned his initial millions himself.
the two are not mutually exclusive
Having said that, though, I don't John Henry is an idiot. I think he bought a business he knows little about and made a mis-call. He then piled on that problem by his defensive apology-- he should have simply owned the error and apologized without reservation.I don't think anyone is surprised that Henry is awkward.
On another note, I wonder how long papers in Greater Boston will continue to be delivered. Twenty years?
Segregated smarts
I'm with Tim-in on this one. JH proved himself brilliant in commodities speculation. He made himself a billionaire by doing it better than everyone else.
That means squat in relation to other fields. Think of how a surgeon or other specialist, even a Nobel winner in a scientific field, decides he or she is all-knowing and expert in everything.
I had my own take on the Globe via the Sox and so forth. I'm not here to plug my other sites, but if you want my take on it, go over to leftahead.com for the latest rant.
Henry blew this and likely won't learn much if anything from it.
Mike
So the Globe completely fails
So the Globe completely fails, but the real bad guys are the other paper?
Got it.
Welcome back!
Sorry you missed all the other Globe-related posts I've put up in recent days, so here's a handy link. I can see why you might think I'm obsessing about the Herald's complete failure to cover a major local story without that context.
The other guys are not doing their jobs, either
This is a big business story. Imagine if the Herald ignored the Market Basket saga back in '14. I had never set foot in one before all of that (and have only had one visit since), but the story had to be told.
So yes, shame on the Globe for poor business decisions, but the Herald, by not stepping in to cover the story, failed as a news organization.
wait....
...they failed as a what?
Now, now
Check out their coverage of unsolved murders in Boston. When they want to, they can be a legit news source.
Hey...
...I just read it for da sports secshun.
At least Globe Direct, which
At least Globe Direct, which still sucks, is no longer being delivered.