August 7, 2018 by Philip Lewenstein

Devotion to Print Issues of Newspapers At Risk When Carriers Fail to Deliver

Typically, once a week or more, I receive an email from the Wall Street Journal saying “we want to inform you of unexpected challenges with delivery in your area which may result in not receiving your newspaper today.”

I subscribe to the Journal, which is delivered to my son’s house along with his Star Tribune. Like me, my son is annoyed when the Journal and the Star Tribune do not arrive on time—or at all. In the electronic age of journalism, we are still devoted to the print issue even when digital access is available.

Whether the newspaper arrives on time can set the tone for the rest of our day. An on-time delivery can establish a positive outlook. A late paper—or no paper—can contribute to a negative mood and lead to a depressing day.

I have subscribed to the Star Tribune for 45 years and, for the most part, have had reasonably good service, but with a few glitches. This spring, for example, my daily Star Tribune would arrive as late as 9:00 a.m. or later (rather than 6:00 to 7:00 a.m.). The delinquent delivery continued for several weeks despite my pleas to the circulation department for improvement and the department’s promise to “escalate” the complaint. One day, I intercepted the news carrier in her car on one of my many trips to the newspaper box at the end of the driveway, and she said the papers were late because my house was part of “an open route.” Not enough carriers were available, so she had to bring me my paper after completing her regular route.

In a recent interview with Twin Cities Business that appeared July 13 in MinnPost, Star Tribune publisher Mike Klingensmith was asked the following: “Home delivery—I didn’t get a paper today. Don’t know why. I’ve noticed the reliability of home delivery has declined. What’s the challenge there?”

Klingensmith replied that “low unemployment and thinning of routes as homes discontinue service is problematic. We deliver each day to help with the density question. We do hit 99 percent reliability with home delivery each day. But people are outraged when they don’t get their delivery, and (expectations) increase as prices increase.”

As a voracious newspaper reader, I subscribed to the St. Paul Pioneer Press, but canceled after growing weary of trying to find the paper in inconvenient locations such as buried in the bushes or soaked in the driveway. It is especially difficult and irritating to try reading a wet paper on one’s kitchen table.

A few years ago, reporter Brian Lambert wrote a MinnPost article (“The real issue with newspaper deliveries,” June 29, 2015) explaining that the Star Tribune and Pioneer Press had entered into a new, limited agreement to which each would have their carriers deliver the other’s papers in certain areas around the Twin Cities.

“Stories of bungled deliveries have piled up like, well like a week’s worth of soggy newsprint clogging the rain gutter,” Lambert wrote. Lambert provided several Facebook comments.

“We dropped the Pioneer Press when the delivery person couldn’t figure out the difference between the sidewalk, the lawn, the gutter in the street, the snowbanks 40 feet from the door or roof top,” one subscriber wrote. “No amount of complaining changed anything,” said another subscriber, referencing longer-standing problems with the Pioneer Press.

The newspaper business has many problems in today’s changed media environment, but poor delivery should not be overlooked. Peter Funt, a writer and TV host, discussed some of the issues in “Night Falls on News Carriers” (June 15, 2018, New York Times).

“There are many reasons the newspaper industry is in free fall, but widespread failure to get the product delivered properly is certainly part of the problem,” Funt, a former newspaper carrier, said. “A shame, because many thousands of carriers remain as dedicated as ever.”

In May, Lisa DeSisto, publisher of the Portland Press Herald in Maine, wrote a letter to subscribers about struggles with consistent home delivery (“Letter from the Publisher: Delivery woes undermine our commitment to service,”
pressherald.com).

“It pains me to write those words,” DeSisto said. “We’re disappointing many of our home delivery subscribers. We aren’t living up to our on-time delivery promise—a paper at your home by 6 a.m. Monday through Saturday and by 7:30 a.m. on Sundays—and it’s incredibly frustrating to us. It’s essentially a labor problem. We are experiencing the most acute shortage of newspaper carriers we can recall.”

DeSisto wrote that many forces are working against the newspaper business these days—readers consuming news for free on the internet, the new tariff on Canadian newsprint driving up the prices publishers pay for paper, and the labor shortage.

Delivering newspapers is not the same job it was 25 years ago when kids tossed newspapers onto porches from their bicycles after school, DeSisto explained.

“Most afternoon papers are gone,” she wrote. “To deliver a morning paper these days, you must be at least 18 and own a car, and be willing to work from 2 a.m. to 6 a.m., dodging deer while searching for house numbers in the dark. It is a really hard job. We’ve worked to make it more attractive by offering signing bonuses and incentives for outstanding service, but we still have 27 open routes.”

“If you still get a newspaper home-delivered (I get six), you are probably as frustrated as the readers in Portland,” said Funt. “So much has changed in the job that many of us relied on to make ends meet. Gasoline prices are higher. With fewer subscribers, routes are more spread out and take longer than before. Many local publishers have contracted to deliver national papers along with their own—and if one national daily is late, the carriers lose precious time waiting.”

Funt presents a familiar story. Some days his papers come at 6:30 a.m., other days at 10:00 or 11:00 a.m. Often, they are tossed in the water-filled ditch near his driveway, and each time the driver gets the hang of it, he or she quits, Funt said.

Another problem is that being a newspaper carrier in America can be dangerous work, according to a recent article in the Columbia Journalism Review (CJR) (“The dangers of the paper route,” by Jon Allsop, Winter 2018) The CJR identified at least 45 deaths on the job since 1970, some in car crashes and some victims of violent crime. Of the 45 deaths, 23 carriers were murdered or violently killed on the job since 1992—more than twice the number of journalists killed in the same period.

Allsop points out that printed papers continue to generate important revenue for many news organizations, and without carriers they wouldn’t get to homes and businesses. “Most carriers go about their work without incident,” Allsop says. “But reporters often don’t consider the risks carriers take day-in, day-out, to put their stories in front of paying readers. And carriers’ work isn’t just physically insecure. They commonly clock hours for little pay and no benefits—even shouldering routine expenses, like gas and rubber bands, as penny-pinching publishers hold them at arm’s length.”

Carriers often are targeted for their money, their vehicle, or other personal property, Allsop says. “The risks of newspaper delivery can’t be fully mitigated; consumer demand usually dictates where carriers go, and when they have to go there; this includes areas with high crime rates,” Allsop says.

Many papers have a keen sense of responsibility to their print subscribers, but they’ve also wanted to save money as circulation has declined. Citing Pew research data, the CJR reports that weekday circulation has dropped by more than a third since 1990. “Companies often find pennies to pinch in the manual labor market that supports the news business,” Allsop says. “Carriers sit at the bottom of the winnowing food chain. Many now operate at two steps removed from the paper they deliver, as newsroom managers have outsourced distribution to private companies, which in turn hire individual carriers on a contract basis rather than employing them.”

Allsop points out that the contractor model works for some carriers by giving them discretion over how to do their job, and this model can provide income for retirees, part-time workers, or enthusiastic participants in the gig economy. However, those who depend on carrier work for financial security often lose out on benefits such as health, unemployment, and injury insurance as well as access to employment law and collective bargaining.

Lambert reported that the Star Tribune has contracts with 21 independent distributors, that is “small business owners who then hire the people they need to get the paper to your—roof, hostas, driveway, or front steps. Or not. (The days of having Little Jimmy the freckle-faced neighbor kid deliver the paper ended about the same time “Leave It to Beaver” went off the air).”

It is debatable whether better-paid carriers would do a better job of home delivery, but the lowest-rent option, “independent contractors,” is an industry standard, Lambert said. It is reasonable to assume that large daily papers like the Star Tribune and Pioneer Press have run the numbers and moved on, “content with leaving their final link in the hands of people barely bringing home minimum wage,” Lambert said.

Allsop traces the history of newspaper carriers starting with the newspaper boy—almost always boys—being poorly paid, poorly treated, and easily exploited. Hawking papers at the turn of the century could be a hardscrabble and cutthroat way to make a living, he says.

Children continued to deliver papers well into the 20^th century, Allsop explains. “But as the population sprawled away from city centers, the cloth-capped urban newsie died out, replaced by the clean-cut middle-class kid pedaling furiously through the neighborhood, chucking papers onto manicured front lawns. But this model had a dark side. At least 12 child carriers were abducted, sexually abused, or killed between 1970 and 1993.”

Today, as DeSisto and Allsop point out, newspapers don’t use kid carriers; papers are largely delivered by adults in cars or trucks. Allsop says that declining circulation has, at least in part, accelerated the motorization of distribution; as fewer houses take a paper, carriers are working routes that are more spread out to make ends meet.

Yet dangers exist in the early-morning hours—vehicle fires, accidents on icy roads, fatigue at the wheel, and reckless driving by other road users. CJR found nine carriers killed in incidents involving their cars in the past four years. Allsop notes that carriers are becoming less financially secure, and they are not getting any physically safer on the job. Attacks on carriers, and even murders, are a depressing industry trend, he says.

Recently, I saw a classified ad in the Star Tribune for newspaper carriers—start earning money in 24 hours, flexible scheduling available, ideal as extra income or a second job, work independently from the comfort of your own vehicle in an area close to your home. You can earn up to $1,500 a month in as little as four hours per day plus tips. The job duties are to assemble, bag, and deliver print publications to houses; transport newspapers from depot to vehicle of choice using equipment provided; eliminate service misses by closely observing route lists; and follow placement requests from customers. The delivery deadline is 6:00 a.m. Monday to Friday, 7:30 a.m. on Saturday, and 8:00 a.m. on Sunday. The employer is listed as “distribution company.”

As a child, I recall our newspaper carrier ringing the doorbell every two weeks to collect for our subscription. Later, as a teenager, I subbed as a carrier on my friend’s afternoon route, delivering papers to the porches of houses at the end of big, manicured lawns. A generation later, my oldest daughter delivered papers by car in the early-morning hours.

Life is about relationships, and my son has addressed his newspaper delivery problems by establishing a relationship with his carrier. Rather than calling the Star Tribune circulation department, he texts his carrier. This direct contact leads to better service and helps the carrier avoid penalties that can be assessed when complaints are filed with the circulation department. Also, my son saves the plastic bags the papers come in and returns them to the carrier, thus saving her expenses.

For now, everything is good. My Star Tribune route has a regular carrier; the paper comes on time and is placed in my Star Tribune box next to the mailbox as I have requested. But how long will it last? How long will newspapers be printed and delivered?