The U.S. Postal Service is one of our most venerable institutions. But it may have outlived its usefulness.
The USPS causes significant delivery delays
for publishers – as much as nine weeks late for a weekly paper, according to a report by the Columbia
Journalism Review (CJR).
This reporter has been long confused by the tendency of chains like Gannett and Lee Enterprises to give up their delivery routes and entrust their print editions
to the USPS. Granted, most print newspapers are facing declining ad revenue, and are trying to cut costs.
The rates are one problem, although there will be no increase
this January. But an even bigger issue may be delivery.
This delivery range for periodicals has already been increased to nine days, CJR writes. And the problem was
exacerbated by a cost-cutting initiative called “Delivering for America,” which resulted in the closing of distribution centers throughout the country.
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What does an executive
like Mike Reed, the CEO of Gannett, think he is paying for?
Of course, smaller publications are feeling the most pain. As CJR writes, “Heather Holmes, the general manager of the
biweekly Lakeland Times in Minocqua, Wisconsin, grew so fed up with the delays her subscribers were experiencing that she put AirTags in several newspapers being shipped out of
state.”
Please don’t take this as an exercise in postal bashing, a pursuit favored by both left and right. But it happens to be the truth.
Forgive us a slight
detour into history. In 1869, E.C. Allen, of Augusta, Maine started Peoples’ Literary Companion, a paper filled with stories, homilies, recipes, songs and
advertisements. Other publishers followed Allen’s lead. A fellow Augustan, P.O. Vickery, started Fireside Visitor, and W.W. Gannett followed
with Comfort. Mailed to farmers whether they wanted them or not, these mail-order papers were “the great business of the city, completely overshadowing everything
else,” wrote Frank A. Munsey, newspaper and magazine publisher and author.
These rags, many of which had ads for patent medicines that they said could cure cancer, were
mailed to people who hadn’t subscribed; stacks of them piled up in backwoods post offices. Then, thanks to rural free delivery and the building of the railroad system, they were delivered right
to the door. "These disgusting prints thus force their way unsolicited into the homes throughout the country and their demoralizing influence it would be hard to overestimate,” a critic
wrote.
As often happens, the last word goes to Mark Twain. He expected the stage driver taking him to Utah to “unload the most of our mail matter somewhere on the Plains and leave
it to the Indians or whosoever wanted it.”