UPDATED, Jan. 10: The tale of The Globe’s delivery nightmare, affecting other newspapers, has taken a new twist, as the Boston paper is reporting about those caught in the middle — the low-income delivery people.
A story headlined “Long hours, little pay, no vacation for delivery drivers” reports:
“Alexander Exposito, a 39-year-old father of two from Hyde Park who has been delivering papers in Roxbury for 14 years, said he was taken aback to see Globe staffers doing his job that morning. For them, it was a one-day rescue mission; for him it is a job.
“‘It almost seemed like it was a joke,’ said Exposito, who holds a second job installing DirecTV dishes.’It takes a lot of dedication, a lot of consistency, to do it day in and day and out. I found it disrespectful, in a sense.'”
Read the rest here >>
Reporters try to rescue Globe delivery fiasco
EARLIER VIEWPOINT: My wife and I visited family in New Jersey and Pennsylvania from Dec. 26 through 28. While away, we stopped for two days our longtime subscriptions to The Boston Globe and New York Times.
The Times came Tuesday, Dec. 29, but not The Globe. It didn’t come Wednesday either. Thursday’s Globe finally came, late.
I called Dec. 29 to find out what happened and was cut off. The phone number was incessantly busy. When I finally reached voicemail, the recorded male sounded like I had reached the Mexican drug cartel that the paper reports about Jan. 3.
Were you part of the late-December surprise storm of newspaper-delivery issues? Thousands were.
They continued Jan. 4 at our house, as we received The Wall Street Journal, to which we do not subscribe, but no Times.
They stemmed from The Globe’s move to a new distributor, the California-based ACI Media Group. It says on its website: “We’ve mastered the art of the last mile.”
Not here.
Whatever happened to the adage: If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it?
The new system’s launch was mastered so well that The Globe’s own reporters have helped get out the paper, as it reports here >>
In my involvement with newspapers since 1970, I have never heard of that before. CNN’s Brian Stelter reported that this has occurred in smaller markets, but not with a major -metro paper.
The unprecedented media news has put Dan Kennedy on the trail of the story behind the story.
The Northeastern professor who has long written about Boston media went to see for himself. Read it here >>
Kennedy notes: “We got our Globe here in West Medford this morning as well as the Sunday New York Times. But they used to be delivered by one carrier, who told us recently she was sticking with the Globe. Now there are two different vendors.”
Adam Gaffin also has some fun with this at Universal Hub. He notes:
“Meanwhile, the Herald’s complete non-coverage shows we’re no longer really a two-paper town.”
Had this delivery fiasco occurred in 1980s, when I worked at the Herald, the tabloid would have been all over the story.
BostonGlobe.com has been running a prominent note to subscribers, which has yet to say why the newspaper switched to a new distributor, one based on the West Coast.
Globe 7: Who mainly delivers The Globe? Immigrants | WGBH: Sources: Henry ignored warnings
Globe, Jan. 6: Former distributor returns | Publisher apologizes
Globe, Jan. 4: Cullen takes us on his route | Management, distributor trade charges
This viewpoint was published Sunday, Jan. 3, 2016, and updated Jan. 10, to add a new lede, headline.
Note: Globe reporter Milton Valencia, shown in the above photo, wrote the drug-cartel story in the Jan. 3 paper, which he is about to deliver.
