WASHINGTON– In an age of tablets and smartphones, internet news and instant gratification, there are still some people who want to hear the 4 a.m. thud of physical newspapers hitting their front steps.
In Massachusetts, frustrations over undelivered papers have been mounting for days. After switching to a new delivery service earlier this week, copies of the Boston Globe haven’t been landing on all the front steps they’re supposed to be. The paper’s call center phones have been ringing off the hook. A “consumer update” posted Saturday on the publication’s website lists over 110 different zip codes where paper delivery will be delayed or disrupted.
Enter “more than 100” Globe employees, according to a statement from the paper, be they editors, reporters, or other employees, all of whom have volunteered their (early) Sunday morning to help deliver copies of the Sunday Globe.
One Globe columnist tweeted Saturday afternoon, “Yes it has come to this. #BostonGlobe journalists r getting up at 4 am to do what a company evidently can’t: deliver the paper.”
Yes it has come to this. #BostonGlobe journalists r getting up at 4 am to do what a company evidently can’t: deliver the paper. #bospoli
— Farah Stockman (@fstockman) January 2, 2016
Globe staffers have also been filling in as call center volunteers in the past few days, CBS Boston reports. The paper delivery volunteers convened before midnight on Saturday to organize routes and package up papers.
It’s a hell of a site — pretty much the whole @BostonGlobe newsroom. Paper routes for a night. pic.twitter.com/uciAwplgbX — Steven Wilmsen (@swilmsen) January 3, 2016
Globe reporters are documenting their volunteer work on Twitter. Grateful subscribers are reaching out, offering coffee, cookies and other treats to staffers that come to their doors. Some former Globe deliverymen and women have offered tips and tricks for some of the routes.
@fstockman if you get the South Boston route ring my bell I’ll make you a coffee.
— Kenny Jervis (@kennycooks) January 2, 2016
@fstockman I was a papergirl from age 9-14. Advice: putting newspaper safely inside storm door—> big tips. Good luck tomorrow! Be safe!
— Kerry Dunne (@dunneteach) January 3, 2016
Boston Business Journal editor Craig Douglas did the math behind the delivery issue and came up with some big numbers. The Boston Globe reported only 5 percent of subscribers were experiencing delivery issues. Still, according to Douglas’s calculations, that’s between 5,000 and 10,000 subscribers not receiving their papers. The Globe story put daily paper deliveries at 115,000 during the weekday, and 205,000 on Sundays. That’s no small feat for a group of 100 or so first-time delivery-people. However, if the flurry of photos and tweets from the crew are anything to go by, they seem to be more than happy to do the job.
@MiltonValencia wrote this front page centerpiece and now he is going to deliver it @BostonGlobe pic.twitter.com/yj0fNXSN1o — Evan Allen (@EvanMAllen) January 3, 2016
. @BostonGlobe staffers still assembling/bagging papers in Newton,MA @brianstelter pic.twitter.com/VYjoOoMMVi — Todd Wallack (@TWallack) January 3, 2016
My partners in crime for the evening, @GlobeMoskowitz @steveannear. #globedelivery pic.twitter.com/hJuKvd6f6T
— David Skok (@dskok) January 3, 2016
Look who’s excited to spend a Saturday night delivering the @bostonglobe pic.twitter.com/u9kJ5gGYfi
— Hilary Sargent (@lilsarg) January 3, 2016
