Month: January 2016

Tweets, an interview, and a statement from the Globe

I spent some time Saturday night and early Sunday morning at The Boston Globe‘s distribution center in Newton, where employees—including many journalists—were assembling papers and getting ready to go out on routes. The Globe covers the story here. What follows is my live-tweeting.

In addition, I’ve posted audio of an interview I conducted with tech columnist Hiawatha Bray and reporter Todd Wallack as they were juggling inserts. (Bray is the first speaker.) After the tweets you’ll find a statement from Peter Doucette, the paper’s vice president for consumer sales and marketing.

By the way: 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.

https://twitter.com/dankennedy_nu/status/683506380033134592

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What follows is Doucette’s statement, which I received a little before 2 a.m.

This is a statement from Peter Doucette, Boston Globe Vice President, Consumer Sales & Marketing regarding Boston Globe staff volunteering to deliver newspapers:

Over this last week, The Boston Globe has received thousands of calls from customers reporting they had not received their daily newspaper as the Globe transitions its home delivery service to a new distribution partner ACI Media.

Establishing a new home delivery network with a new partner is a complex and major undertaking. Please know that we launched this transition because we firmly believed, and still do, that it was necessary to assure a higher level of delivery and customer service over the long term. In the short term, frustrating service disruptions have occurred as our new home delivery partner ACI Media deploys a new staff of 600 carriers who must learn new delivery routes and the addresses of the homes and apartments for every Globe home delivery subscribers.

With the Sunday paper about to hit – the Globe is doing everything possible to mitigate these short term delivery issues. More than two hundred Boston Globe journalists, business and operations staff, from general reporters in the newsroom up to the highest levels of leadership, are volunteering their time this holiday weekend to help deliver tomorrow’s Boston Globe or assist fielding phones calls from readers in Globe’s customer service call center.

This weekend’s effort is one small gesture to show our Globe customers that we are working hard with ACI to address these issues. We expect the process to improve not instantly, but steadily with each passing day and thank our customers for their patience.

Here’s the union letter asking Globe staffers to deliver paper

Here is the email that went out earlier today to Boston Globe employees from Scott Steeves, president of the Boston Newspaper Guild. I have removed contact information.

Dear Members –

We are in crisis mode. I’m sure you’ve all heard about the papers not getting delivered this past week. We are looking for people to work tonight delivering papers in the Newton area. Anyone from the editorial side who is able to work tonight delivering papers, please email Beth Healy. Anyone from the business side who is able to work tonight delivering papers, please contact Scott Steeves.

We will be meeting at 15 Riverdale Ave. in Newton at midnight. Globe employees will need to be two per car. Please have proof of driver’s license and registration. You will get a route with a list of households with delivery instructions. Make sure you have a flashlight and a GPS.

Appreciate everybody who can help out.  Thanks in advance.

Scott

More from Craig Douglas of the Boston Business Journal.

The latest update on the Globe‘s home-delivery meltdown

Update, 5:05 p.m. Confirming a rumor I picked up earlier today, Globe tech columnist Hiawatha Bray reports on Facebook that “dozens” of Globe reporters, responding to the “fiasco” of the past week, will deliver the Sunday paper.

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Today’s must-read post on The Boston Globe‘s ongoing home-delivery meltdown is by Adam Gaffin of Universal Hub. Among other things, he notes that when the Orange County Register switched to the Globe‘s new carrier, ACI Media Group, in 2014, mayhem ensued.

But I’m confused. According to the Times‘ story, the Register switched from the Los Angeles Times‘ service to ACI, based in Long Beach, California, after it fell behind on its payments to the Times. Yet when the Globe published a story on its own problems earlier this week, it identified ACI as the company that delivers the Los Angeles Times.

Googling ACI Media Group leads to dead ends and 404s (not a good sign). But I did find a cached press release from September 2010 in which ACI reported that it had at least some of the L.A. Times‘ home-delivery business:

American Circulation Innovations (ACI) is now delivering a weekly volume of 250,000 of the subscription-paid daily and Sunday Los Angeles Times. This represents a more than 100% increase of ACI’s delivery of the Los Angeles Times newspaper.

ACI’s Chief Executive, Keith Somers said: “We’ve been able to leverage our management team’s circulation background and our highly innovative and efficient delivery model to provide the Los Angeles Times with quality home delivery at reduced rates. We’re proud that our performance and service have earned increased business from such a valued and marquee partner.”

So the Orange County Register switched from the Los Angeles Times‘ home-delivery service to ACI Media Group, which also had at least some of the Times‘ business. And now the Globe is reporting that ACI has all of the Times‘ business. I guess.

The company’s new name appears to be the ACI Last Mile Network. And for what it’s worth, I haven’t been able to find any stories about problems with its service similar to what the Globe is going through. The Register‘s problems were essentially self-inflicted—though that may turn out to be the case with the Globe as well.