Your daily update on the Globe’s home-delivery woes

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Photo (cc) 2007 by Steve Johnson

Previously published at WGBHNews.org.

There’s a risk that updates on The Boston Globe‘s home-delivery woes are going to become repetitive. But the story is still unfolding, and there is news to pass along. I’ll try to keep this terse.

As you no doubt know, Globe chief executive Mike Sheehan has been making the rounds. He told Jim Braude on Greater Boston Monday that he does not expect the worst-case scenario—a four- to six-month delay before service is returned to normal—will come to pass. Instead, he put it at 30 to 45 days. That’s four to six weeks, still a significant lag. I’d say the Globe has four to six days before this really starts to hurt the bottom line.

Then again, it depends. Sheehan also told Barbara Howard on WGBH Radio (89.7 FM) Tuesday that the new distributor, ACI Media Group, would be using updated software today and that he expects significant improvements almost immediately. If the Globe can solve most of the problem in the next few days (and based on Twitter reaction this morning, things have definitely not changed for the better yet), then getting the rest of it right over the next few weeks might be acceptable. On the other hand, several more weeks of utter chaos will be devastating.

Another aspect of the Braude interview worth noting: Sheehan vigorously disagreed with an assertion by columnist/paper boy Kevin Cullen that the switch will result in lower pay for carriers. “Whatever they pay the delivery people, it’s not enough,” Cullen wrote, “and it’s more than a little depressing to think this debacle has been brought about by a desire to pay them even less.”

Sheehan responded that the savings he anticipates would not come from paying the carriers less, pointing out that ACI is competing for workers with the Globe‘s previous carrier, Publishers Circulation Fulfillment, or PCF. And he repeated his claim that the switch was driven primarily for better service. Lower costs, better service? Seems to me that we generally get to choose one or the other, not both.

In other developments:

  • The Globe itself today reports that the paper may add a second vendor—possibly its previous vendor, PCF. The Globe also checks in with two other ACI Clients, The Dallas Morning News and the Palm Beach Post, and it sounds like both papers did a lot more advance planning than took place at the Globe. Executives at both papers say they are pleased with ACI’s performance, one of the few good signs in all this.
  • WBUR Radio (90.9 FM) has more on the new software. It includes some good quotes from friend of WGBH News Sue O’Connell, co-publisher of Bay Windows and the South End News.
  • The Boston Business Journal publishes an overview, including some interesting numbers on the Globe‘s reliance on print revenue.
  • The screw-up is affecting delivery of other papers as well, since ACI is now competing with PCF and forcing delivery people to decide which company to work with. Among the papers that are been harmed are The Daily Item of Lynn and The MetroWest Daily News of Framingham. Larger papers such as The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and the Boston Herald—all of which continue to be delivered by PCF—have been affected as well.
  • As for the Herald‘s non-coverage of a story that it would have been all over a few years go, I can’t top what my friend John Carroll has been doing. (Yes, the Herald is printed by the Globe these days.) Here is John’s latest update, which includes a tip of the hat to Beat the Press host Emily Rooney.

Mike Sheehan addresses Globe home-delivery meltdown

My WGBH News colleague Jim Braude interviewed Boston Globe chief executive Michael Sheehan tonight on Greater Boston about the Globe‘s home-delivery meltdown. Among other things, Sheehan says he expects the situation to be largely solved in 30 to 45 days—not four to six months. Watch the whole thing, but below are some highlights provided by WGBH.

• Sheehan responded to speculation that some Globe staffers would be losing their jobs:

BRAUDE: More than one person said to me that when you were hired to do this job, you made clear that you didn’t want to be responsible for things where you didn’t have experience, like distribution. Is that true? Is it true that you had that conversation with John Henry?

SHEEHAN: Yeah, circulation is not part of my—

BRAUDE: So who is responsible for this mess if not you?

SHEEHAN: I am.

BRAUDE: But who is the person who’s in charge who’s responsible for this?

SHEEHAN: We have a team of people in charge of it, but I’m the CEO, and I’m accountable for it.

BRAUDE: Ultimately you’re saying it stops at your desk. But whoever made the decision, is he or she still going to be working at the paper?

SHEEHAN: Yes.

BRAUDE: Nobody’s fired?

SHEEHAN: It was a group decision—

BRAUDE: No discipline for anybody?

SHEEHAN: No.

• Sheehan also commented on the backlash from subscribers:  

BRAUDE: You were a messaging guru in your former life. What’s the message that you’re going to convey to those angry subscribers, now and when you subscribe their service, that reestablishes that bond?

SHEEHAN: We’re sorry. We’re incredibly, deeply sorry that this happened. And we’re going to fix it. We appreciate their business. We appreciate the bond. When you go to someone’s house, and they’re shut in, and they tell you that “this is my lifeline to the world,” and they’re not getting it, we cannot disappoint people like that. And we won’t.

A possible solution to the Globe’s delivery dilemma?

Boston Globe reporter Beth Healy appeared on WGBH’s Boston Public Radio with Jim Braude and Margery Eagan a little while ago and said there is no way the Globe is going to accept a four- to six-month timeframe before home delivery returns to normal. She said we should expect news in a day or two.

How the Globe’s home-delivery woes became a crisis

Previously published at WGBHNews.org.

Boston Globe owner John Henry now has a full-blown crisis on his hands. Before Sunday night, the Globe’s inability to deliver newspapers to its paying customers looked like an annoying but manageable problem—provided it was solved within the next few days. But the stunning revelation by the paper’s new distributor that it could take four to six months for home delivery to return to normal changes everything.

Following Sunday night’s devastating story by Globe reporters Mark Arsenault and Dan Adams (it’s also on the front of today’s print edition if you can find one), it’s clear that there is going to be an ugly—and very public—standoff between the Globe and the new distributor, ACI Media Group of Long Beach, California.

Earlier claims that only 5 percent of customers were being affected have given way to reality. The Globe’s chief executive, Mike Sheehan, now says the number is 10 percent, citing ACI’s own figures. Anecdotally, that still seems low. As of this morning, people living in 112 zip codes are still experiencing delays. Or, as many customers have been complaining, no delivery at all.

Other than the four- to six-month timeframe, I thought the most mind-boggling part of the Globe story was a quote from Jack Klunder, the president and chief executive of ACI, who claims he told Globe executives exactly what to expect:

“I said ‘I cannot describe to you how painful it is,’ ” Klunder said, recounting his warning to Globe officials. “I used the expression ‘massive disruption.’ … You’re going to get thousands of calls, emails—social media is going to be blistering you. The news media is going to be blistering you. You’re going to like where you are at the end of this cycle but you’re going to go through this.”

Sheehan essentially denies being told that, saying the problems of the past week go “far beyond any reasonable definition of disruption.”

Incredibly, Arsenault and Adams also report that ACI can’t be held liable for any performance problems during the first three months of the contract.

Despite all this, I suspect there’s more than a little posturing going on. Both sides have to know that a months-long delivery crisis is unacceptable and will set off an avalanche of canceled subscriptions (I’ve already heard from people who want to cancel but can’t because the phones are jammed), refunds to advertisers, and severe damage to the Globe’s brand and reputation. (Klunder seems to think this isn’t going to hurt ACI’s reputation at all. “We’ll be fine,” he’s quoted as saying. And why not? The Globe hired him despite similar problems in 2014 at the Orange County Register.)

But what can be done? We can safely assume that Globe executives don’t want to give ACI more money. Although Sheehan is quoted as saying the switch was mainly made to improve service (oops), he adds that he was aiming to save money as well. Perhaps the Globe could cancel the contract and re-up with the previous vendor, Publishers Circulation Fulfillment. But the network of hardworking, underpaid delivery people has already been so thoroughly upended that there’s probably no sure way of restoring the status quo.

Among the many threads to this ongoing story, one emerging theme may be tension between the Globe’s newsroom and the business side. The era of good feelings engendered by John Henry’s ownership suffered a setback this fall, as the paper eliminated about 45 positions through buyouts and layoffs at the same time that Henry was launching Stat, a well-staffed website covering health and life sciences.

On Saturday night and into the early-morning hours on Sunday, many dozens of Globe journalists volunteered to deliver the Sunday paper. It was a feel-good story, to be sure, and it would have been seen as a nice gesture if the delivery woes were just a few days away from being solved. But there was an edge to it as well. I spent some time at the paper’s Newton distribution center, and unhappiness was clearly evident among newsroom staffers toward their colleagues whose job it is to manage the paper’s business operations.

“We’re fighting for our survival here, and I like doing what I’m doing,” technology columnist Hiawatha Bray told me as he assembled papers alongside reporter Todd Wallack. “Not just because I get paid, but because I love journalism.” When I asked him why he thought the switch in vendors had been so painful, Bray replied, “I’m sorry, I have no idea. We have nothing to do with whatever it was that happened, and we’re just mystified.”

Added Wallack: “People deserve their paper. I agree with all our readers. They have a right to expect the paper to be there every morning.”

For that matter, Sunday night’s bombshell story was something of a declaration by Globe editor Brian McGrory that the paper can best serve its readers by holding powerful institutions accountable—including the Globe itself.

A final point. If you feel tempted to snark about the Globe’s dependence on print circulation some 20 years into the digital age, you need to understand a few things about the newspaper business. Digital is both the present and the future, of course. But print is still where the money is, not just for the Globe but for nearly all newspapers. Online, advertising is ubiquitous and therefore cheap. In print, advertising remains a lucrative if declining source of revenue.

Moreover, if we’ve learned anything from the past week, it’s that a lot of people still like to read the newspaper in print. On one end of the scale are the Globe readers who took to Twitter and Facebook to complain about the delivery problems. On the other are the total digital holdouts. I’ve heard stories that Globe employees took calls from customers who don’t even have an email address.

One person who hasn’t been heard from throughout the chaos of the past week is John Henry himself. This is his first real crisis since he purchased the Globe in 2013. But if there’s anything we’ve learned throughout his long tenure as principal owner of the Red Sox, it’s that he has a tendency to let bad situations play out—sometimes too long—before he acts.

It would be nice to hear from him. But it would be even better if he commits to doing whatever it takes to fix this mess. The Globe doesn’t have four to six months to get it right.

It may be 4-6 months before Globe delivery is back to normal

The Boston Globe weighs in with its first in-depth story on the home-delivery mess. Unfortunately, the news is not good. Executives for the Globe and the new distributor, ACI Media Group, are pointing fingers at each other, and ACI says service won’t be back to what it was previously for (are you ready?) four to six months. (For what it’s worth, I’m quoted.)

Here’s a paragraph to chew over:

“I said ‘I cannot describe to you how painful it is,’ ” [ACI chief executive Jack] Klunder said, recounting his warning to Globe officials. “I used the expression ‘massive disruption.’ … You’re going to get thousands of calls, e-mails—social media is going to be blistering you. The news media is going to be blistering you. You’re going to like where you are at the end of this cycle but you’re going to go through this.”

To which I and all other Globe subscribers (and managers and employees) can only say: You’ve got to be kidding.

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.

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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.

***

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.

My top 10 articles, commentaries, and blog posts of 2015

12362437_125299394511655_1354983192_nThe standalone blog has become something of a dinosaur. I’ve been writing Media Nation since 2005. Increasingly, though, the online conversation is driven by social media. And I find that I’ve been using my blog more and more as an archive for posts that I wrote for other sites.

As a paid weekly columnist for WGBHNews.org and an occasional contributor to the Nieman Journalism Lab, I find that most of my best work is published there before it makes its way onto Media Nation. So I’m going to break with my past practice of writing an end-of-the-year round-up of my top 10 most-trafficked blog posts. Instead, I’m going to go with my top five, along with five pieces that were published elsewhere that, at least in my mind, stand out as my best work.

I no longer think it makes sense to post page views for each blog post since I imagine the page views for non-Media Nation pieces were much greater. But in the interests of full disclosure, I will tell you that my total number of visitors to Media Nation has been dropping, from 142,000 in 2013 to just under 120,000 in 2014 and about 102,000 in 2015 (which, after all, still has a few hours to go!).

My personal top five

The 2015 Muzzle Awards (WGBHNews.org, July 4). Since 1998 I’ve been writing the New England Muzzle Awards—an annual round-up of outrages against free speech. Until 2012 the Muzzles were published in the late, great Boston Phoenix. Now they are hosted by WGBHNews.org. As I noted in the introduction, the 2015 edition came amid “a crisis in transparency on Beacon Hill and throughout Massachusetts” as the state’s extraordinarily weak public records law finally started to garner public attention and outrage. Unfortunately, promised reforms have not yet materialized. The House passed an inadequate reform bill that is now awaiting action in the Senate, where—let’s hope—it may be strengthened.

How A Connecticut Journalist Broke A Key Part Of The Bizarre Las Vegas Newspaper Story (WGBHNews.org, December 29). In which I tell the tale of Christine Stuart, the editor and co-owner of CT News Junkie, who used social media to unmask the identity of “Edward Clarkin.” Clarkin’s byline appeared atop a plagiarism-filled article in Connecticut’s New Britain Herald about county judges in Nevada, one of whom had run afoul of casino mogul Sheldon Adelson. The story is way too weird and complicated to explain here, but Clarkin is apparently a pseudonym for Herald owner Michael Schroeder, who is involved in Adelson’s purchase of the Las Vegas Review-Journal.

In New Haven, a low-power FM experiment seeks local conversation—and financial sustainability (Nieman Journalism Lab, August 4). The New Haven Independent, a 10-year-old nonprofit news site, launched WNHH Radio, a low-power FM community station (it also streams at the Independent). The project represented a considerable ramping-up of ambitions on the part of Independent founder and editor Paul Bass. More than four months after its debut, WNHH appears to be going strong. Note: The Independent is the main subject of my 2013 book, The Wired City, for which I also interviewed Christine Stuart of CT News Junkie.

What The New York Times‘ Screw-Up Tells Us About The Liberal Media’s Anti-Liberal Bias (WGBHNews.org, December 21). The Times recently reported that San Bernardino shooter Tashfeen Malik had posted openly on social media about her terrorist inclinations. The Times turned out to be wrong—and two of the reporters who were involved also wrote a drastically wrong story earlier in the year about Hillary Clinton’s email activities that left readers with the impression that she was on the verge of being indicted. The problem is that members of the so-called liberal media like nothing better than to go after liberal politicians, both because they hope it will silence their conservative critics and because it plays into their self-image of even-handedness.

The Worcester Sun wants to bootstrap paywalled hyperlocal digital into a Sunday print product (Nieman Journalism Lab, September 29). A look at the Worcester Sun, an online-only news site founded by Mark Henderson, a former top digital executive with the Telegram & Gazette of Worcester, and Fred Hurlbrink Jr., formerly of GateHouse Media. Henderson and Hurlbrink’s secret sauce is to leverage their website into a Sunday print edition—a move that could come sometime in 2016.

My top five Media Nation posts

Unlike my personal top five, I’ve ranked these strictly by online traffic.

1. Shaughnessy defends Globe over deleted sentence (September 1). Boston Globe columnist Dan Shaughnessy, in a tough column over the non-renewal of popular Red Sox announcer Don Orsillo, asserted that two Fenway Park employees had told him they were ordered to confiscate pro-Orsillo signs from fans as they came into the ballpark. That reference was removed from later editions, which led speculators to speculate given that Globe publisher John Henry is also the principal owner of the Red Sox. Globe managing editor for digital David Skok took to Twitter to say that Shaughnessy’s sourcing was “weak.” Shaughnessy himself told me that he considered the deletion to be “part of the editing process that is always ongoing.”

2. McGrory tells Globe staffers they need to think digital (April 6). I published a longish memo that Globe editor Brian McGrory sent to the staff urging renewed efforts on the digital front. McGrory wrote that “we’re moving the morning and afternoon meetings up by 30 minutes, to 10 and 3 respectively—a small change that is part of a larger effort to make us quicker and more nimble on the web. The goal is, as mentioned before, to get everyone to think as much about our site as we do the paper.”

3. Berkshire Eagle publishes, defends a racist column (June 29). A local Republican activist wrote a column in the wake of unrest in Baltimore and Ferguson, Missouri, that could fairly be described as racist. “After the burning and looting in Baltimore and Ferguson we are seeing endless media hand-wringing that somehow ‘we’ must all do something more to help black America,” wrote Steven Nikitas. “And ‘we’ means white people, taxpayers, businesses, the criminal justice system, the universities and the government.” The Eagle defended the column on the grounds of free speech. I argued that Nikitas has no free-speech right of access to a daily newspaper’s op-ed page, and that if he wanted to write racist diatribes he should start a blog.

4. Henry Santoro to join WGBH Radio as a news anchor (April 17). Henry is an old friend from my Boston Phoenix days; he was a major part of the Phoenix‘s radio station, WFNX, and occasionally contributed to the paper as well. He joined a burgeoning number of former Phoenicians at WGBH, including Peter Kadzis, Adam Reilly, David Bernstein and me. (And another personal note: Later in the year, Barbara Howard, who’s married to the new director of Northeastern’s School of Journalism, Jonathan Kaufman, also joined WGBH as a news anchor.)

5. Globe to replace g section, Brian McGrory tells staff (January 1). Another McGrory memo, this one entirely self-explanatory.

The Globe’s home-delivery problems continue

2009 photo (cc) by jtu
2009 photo (cc) by jtu

The situation with home delivery for Boston Globe customers doesn’t seem to be much better today. Judging from Twitter and other online comments, the only good news for the Globe is that people really miss their paper.

I’ve seen a few conspiratorial-minded commenters suggest that this is a deliberate attempt to get people to switch to digital. In fact, newspapers still make most of their money from print, especially on Sunday. Which makes the meltdown all the more inexplicable.

A few data points. A website called Customer Service Scoreboard reports that the Globe has received 193 negative comments and just one positive. The oldest comment goes back to 2010, and it’s certainly true that people aren’t going to check in to report that their paper arrived on time. Still, the top of the thread is loaded with comments from folks who haven’t received their paper this week and can’t get a response from the Globe.

In a “Note to Subscribers,” the Globe says in part, “This disruption is not unexpected, as the transition involves the hiring and deployment of approximately 600 drivers.” I find that statement surprising. Given the importance of getting it right, you’d think there would have been multiple meetings over many months beginning and ending with: “We can’t screw this up.”

The Globe‘s Beth Healy quotes chief executive Mike Sheehan as saying that, on Wednesday, only 5 percent of customers did not receive their paper in a timely manner. But look at all the zip codes where the new delivery service is still having problems.

Over at WBZ-TV (Channel 4), Boston University’s John Carroll tells Jon Keller that he has a message for Globe publisher John Henry: “Get in your car and start delivering some newspapers.”

Adam Gaffin of Universal Hub continues to track the story and post tweets. Comments are rolling in at my WGBHNews.org story from Wednesday as well.