Our local newspaper, The Herald Palladium, recently announced a new delivery system for the daily morning edition. Instead of using drivers to deliver the paper as the sun rises, it is resorting to using the United States Postal Service. The reason is that the paper cannot find enough good delivery people who want to use their own cars, get up at the crack of dawn, and be subject to extreme weather conditions.
We live in a relatively rural community, so I get it.
Still, when your mail is delivered between 4 PM and 5 PM – and you’re used to a morning paper — it’s an adjustment. My husband grabs the paper first thing in the AM. He reads almost every word of the obituaries, glances at the sport headlines, and attempts the crossword puzzle faithfully with his first and second cups of coffee in hand. I get the paper passed to me in the later afternoon, so my routine isn’t going to be disrupted.
Except for the fact that the paper will publish only on the days the USPS delivers. So Sunday and holiday editions are out.
I don’t think this bodes well for our local paper. There will subscribers who won’t renew even though the publisher says that if one has a subscription one can read the online version at six in the morning. But this requires being computer savvy, and I suspect most of the people who want to hold a newspaper in their hands were born before computers were standard equipment.
In my opinion, The Herald Palladium is making a mistake with this delivery option. I hope I’m wrong.
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