Saturday Grumble

No doubt many of you daily subscribers to the Freeps received a letter with your paper this morning, informing you that Gannett was about to institute yet another change; this time to your home delivery.

It seems that our paper will no longer be flung up on the front porch, an arrangement that has been quite agreeable to me.  It will, instead, be inserted in a tube at the end of our non-existant driveway.

“To provide you the best customer service that we can”

I have emphasized what I believe is the operative part of that quote, which might be expanded thusly:

…while rigorously guarding our bottom line.

The letter ends with the assurance that our subscription rate will not be affected by this “improvement.”

For all the other frustrated Free Press subscribers out there, I decided to share my e-mailed response to the Distribution Manager, Patrick McDonough:

Dear Mr. McDonough,

Thank you for your letter of April 6, proposing to change the manner in which our daily paper is delivered.  Frankly, this has me puzzled.  Where exactly do you propose to “place” this tube?  I don’t expect you’ll start drilling into the exterior of my house, will you?  We have an ample sheltered front porch on which the paper lands nicely without incident on most days.

(continued after the “fold”)

 

We live in a big house on ……..St., a very busy street adjacent to downtown.  We do not have a driveway in front of our house.  Do you propose to install your tube on the parking strip in front of our house?  If so, you might find that the City of St. Albans takes issue with that arrangement, since this is an historic district where every change must be run by the planning commission.  You may also find that the number of calls from me for missed papers increases substantially, since ….. St. in front of my house serves as primary parking for downtown during business hours, and many may find it convenient to “pick-up” the paper from my delivery tube on their way down to work.

Let’s see, what are all the things I now “love” about the changes proposed by Gannett to Free Press print service?  There is the shift to tabloid “with color on every page,”

so I can look forward to not being too troubled by the depth of my news.  Then there was the sudden switch from color to black and white for the interior pages of the Sunday comics…I guess that would be classed as robbing Peter to pay Paul?

Now, my paper is to be delivered curbside for the enjoyment of the first lucky, if slightly less than honest, passerby.

How much for a digital subscription instead?  Oh, that’s right, if I choose digital I will be further relieved of the burden of excess information because the text available online will represent an abbreviated version of the full paper.

Well I’m pretty much damned if I do and damned if I don’t, am I not?

Thank you for your attention.

About Sue Prent

Artist/Writer/Activist living in St. Albans, Vermont with my husband since 1983. I was born in Chicago; moved to Montreal in 1969; lived there and in Berlin, W. Germany until we finally settled in St. Albans.

10 thoughts on “Saturday Grumble

  1. Well, Sue, you’ve just qualified yourself as “an old fart.”

    When we first moved out to the wilds of the county a quarter century ago, the only way we could get the Freep was by tube at the end of our tenth-of-a-mile-long driveway – actually across the road. The “tube” was a rectangular blue plastic receptacle on its own stanchion next to our mailbox. [Aside: the tubes, which iirc, used to be round and open at both ends, had to be redesigned at some point because some birds found them perfect for housing nests.] We quit getting the paper before we gave up on the mailbox, for reasons you have delineated: missing papers; it got to be a real pain keeping track of how many papers they owed us – and being out in the wilds of the county, they promised replacements, which arrived hours later, long after I’d left for work.

    Now if I want a paper, I go up to the corner store. If I miss a day, hey, no big deal.

    You live even closer to a newsstand than I … the walk will do you good, just requiring you to forego the pleasure of reading the paper in your PJs.

    NanuqFC

    We live under a government of men and morning newspapers ~ Wendell Phillips (1811-1884)

  2. …making it as unpleasant as possible to buy and use your product. It’s like if GM, Ford and Chrysler responded to the auto industry crisis by making their cars smaller and crappier while doubling the prices. Brilliant!

    I realize that newspapers are in a real bind; their business model is broken and they’re trying to figure out how to fix it. (While maintaining profits for shareholders, natch.) But they really ought to stop shitting on their customers.

    When they keep doing things that make it harder to obtain and read a newspaper, then I wonder how much of their predicament is market forces, and how much is their own damn stupid fault.  

  3. Well Gannet is on a shoestring budget making cutbacks etc.

    Gannett’s CEO in a selfless act requested she not receive her $1.5 million bonus from Gannett’s Excecutive Bonus Committee. Her total pay package after this sacrifice is for 2011 was only $4.6 million.

    Other suffering Gannett execs:

    CFO Paul Saleh approximately $2.2 million.

    Robert Dickey, president, newspaper division $2.7 million.

    David Lougee, president, broadcasting division $1.6 million.

    David Payne, chief digital officer $1.5 million.

    The biggest payout of 2011, of course, went to former CEO Craig Dubow, whose pay package totaled $12.2 million, including $5.9 million when he retired.

    http://www.huffingtonpost.com/

  4. The response I received from Mr. McDonough, is copied in its entirety below.  It’s interesting because this is not the impression given in their announcement several months ago of  changes at the Freeps:

    “Local news and in-depth coverage, that’s our franchise and we will not waver from that,” Fogler said. “We will offer more narrative and more polish for print as opposed to what we post online.”

    Here’s Mr. McDonough’s e-mail:

    Dear Sue,

    We are happy to accommodate any subscriber request.  If you require the paper delivered to your porch, we are happy to do so.

    The shift to a compact format is a change that is being looked at by many other newspapers across the country as it has a hugely positive reader response.  We are positive that our subscribers will enjoy the new format.

    The lack of color in comics is temporary while we rebuild our aging press.  As units are replaced, we lose color in certain sections.  This should be finished by the end of April.

    The digital subscription offers an exact replica of the newspaper online in pdf format.  There will be no changes between the print and e-editions except for the inserts.

    I hope I have been able to address your concerns.  If I have not or if you have further questions, please contact me anytime.

    Pat

  5. Motor route drivers are contractors. Routes in densely populated areas such as the burbs near cities have no tubes, bagged paper is thrown @ the foot of drive although there are what’s known as ‘city routes’ where paper is delivered to door as safety allows, much like mail in those locations. Those can be lucrative, however paper delivery in rural locations pays very little, & is done solely by ‘contractors’ aka employees w/no benefits.

    It could very well be that Gannett in some locales is looking to get rid of the rural routes & may very well turn what areas are profitable into one huge streamlined run. Gas costs are driving prices of everything up & really putting the squeeze on those who drive for a living.

    There are two online versions, one is simply a website with links to stories etc, the other is “digitized”, an exact digital replica, the one they print. All cutting & pasting is now done online & is then printed.

    Rutland Herald & Times Argus offer news packages, but the online version is free for subscribers. Digitized version is less costly than print.

    https://home.rutlandherald.com

    https://home.timesargus.com/cl

    Digitized papers:

    http://www.commonsnews.org/sit

    http://www.colebrookchronicle….

    Check out the film “Newsies” if you haven’t seen it already:

    http://www.youtube.com/movie?v

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