Sunday, September 12, 2010

If You Can't Beat Them, Join Them: The Lessons We Learn From Newspaper Delivery

I did something this morning that I rarely do: I complained about a service. At school, I almost never complain when someone in a staff or administrative position drops the ball. I am far more likely to go straight to them, if the thing was important, and say "Hey, what can I do differently next time to make sure this doesn't happen again in this way?" Such an encounter sometimes results in useful information about what I can do differently; other times it results in the person apologizing for whatever didn't get done and taking note of it for the future.

The least productive thing to do is to keep things to myself and fume, doing things I shouldn't have to do to make sure they happen, harboring a grievance, feeling hard done by, and coming to believe that I am ill-served and underprivileged. My experience is that this usually ends with me having a fit about something that might have been easily resolved, an unpleasant encounter to which the person delivering the service I require cannot possibly respond. And yet, minus the unreasonable fit, this is exactly what I have done in relationship to my newspaper delivery, causing myself great misery in the process.

As readers of this blog know, The New York Times is very dear to me. In part that is because local newspapers, with a few exceptions, have been bought up and gutted by national chains. Stripped of reporting staff, managed from afar, and bleeding red ink from the collapse of advertising revenue, newspapers in places like Shoreline and Zenith are so dreadful and understaffed that they don't even report local news anymore, much less connect the local to the national or the international. In fact, since the 1970s, when I went to high school in the Philadelphia suburbs and read The Philadelphia Inquirer every day, I have not had access to a really good local newspaper. Hence, I became a devotee of the Gray Lady, and came to see it as a daily link to a national conversation. When I went to college in Shoreline I acquired my own subscription, delivered to the door by another student; when I lived in New York I picked it up from a newsstand as soon as I left the house because it was my local newspaper; when I got my first academic job in Philadelphia I snubbed the Inquirer because I now considered myself a New Yorker.

When I went to work at Zenith back in 1991, I still considered myself a New Yorker: after all, my partner worked there and we maintained a lovely New York apartment. However I soon realized, to my horror, that you could not have the Times delivered in the town of Zenith. Color me silly, but this flaw -- and the university's unwillingness to push the Times to establish a delivery route around the campus for the 14 years that I lived there -- was a major symbolic force in persuading me that I could no longer live in Zenith. If the New York Times was not delivered there, I felt, much as I liked my house and my short commute to work, the town of Zenith was a backwater where I was sure to become obscure and forgotten, where Life would soon cease to be Worth Living, and I would spend the rest of my days as a character in a Mary McCarthy novel.

Reader, I moved.

So now I live in Shoreline and subscribe to the Times, although as I understand it, publisher Arthur Sulzberger, Jr., has now admitted the dreadful truth: that in order to continue to publish at the level its readers expect, the Times will eventually have to become web-only. I'm not surprised. At a conference I attended early in the summer, a newspaper editor who was part of a panel of journalism scholars, unveiled the astonishing fact that around 80% of a newspaper's operating budget involves generating and transporting the object itself.

This brings me back to my complaint: for the past six months or so, my newspaper has arrived far too late in the day for me to know I will have time to read it, something that I feel seriously impairs my ability to do my job as a teacher-scholar, much less a blogger. Anyone outside my door in the morning might observe the venetian blinds being cracked open every fifteen minutes or so by a hand surrounded in terry cloth, an unblinking eyeball appearing at the hole provided, and the blinds snapping shut with disgust. Some days, I go out and peer under the bushes and the porch, usually to no avail. On mornings that I teach at 9:00, as I leave the house to go to school, I often toss the paper through the door in disgust, knowing it will go unread (at least by me) that day, and that its only destiny is the recycling bin. Today, a Sunday, the paper arrived at 8:15, when I had been up for about 90 minutes and was already fully engaged in other tasks.

So finally I called The New York Times to complain, something I have put off doing because I know that people who deliver newspapers for a living are probably working a second or third job, and I keep hoping that this situation will change without me asserting my class privilege as a person who works one, fairly well-paid, job. And yet, I say to myself, Why am I paying $40.00 a month for a paper I cannot read most of the time -- or cannot read in time to be an informed person which, as a history professor, I should be? Should I not do something about this before I get some terrible auto-immune disease that has been caused by my suppressed anger at not receiving the newspaper? Or come to regard the New York Times as a charity I support rather than a pleasure?

What I learned from the nice man who answered at 1-800-NYTIMES was this: my complaint about late newspapers during the week was justified, as delivery is guaranteed by 6:30; and my complaint about late newspapers on the weekend is not justified, as delivery is only guaranteed by 8:30. I pointed out, calmly, to the man receiving my complaint, that 8:30 was awfully late for those of us who think that a day should begin with the newspaper, and who rise far earlier. He pointed out that this might be so and made a little moue of sympathy, but said with regret that the guarantee was company policy, so there you go. There you go, I agreed. And there we were. He said he would get on it about the weekday newspaper; I agreed, with regret, to suck it up about the weekend newspaper.

In fact, walking the dog around 8:45, I noted numerous bagged newspapers waiting on other people's doorsteps, and one sleepy man in PJ's picking up his. I may, in fact, be almost the only customer in the neighborhood who rarely sleeps past 6:15. If there is anything I have learned through a lifetime of being one of the very few queer people in my workplace it is this: you may want people to take your minority interests into account, but the truth is that they won't, mostly. The majority not only rules, but they rule so completely that you can drive yourself crazy trying to get people to accommodate what seems like a simple request, or even trying to get them to recognize that you have a legitimate point of view. Developing a talent for compromise is not only wise, it is a necessary survival strategy, unless you like being unfairly regarded as a fussy, unreasonable eccentric.

As I saw the untouched newspapers up and down the street, and on the porches that surround our neighborhood green (one porch had four bagged papers, representing at least four sleepyhead intellectuals) I began having that feeling of dread that I used to have in Zenith that signifies impending Social Death. Once again, I thought, I have ended up in a backwater and will have to sell my house, quit my job and move back to New York to have the Life Worth Living. Or I will have to compromise. But how?

Then I was struck by a brighter thought. At a certain point you have to stop running from a problem, and do the sensible thing: throw money at it. So off to the iPad store I go.

One of the threads I will be developing in this blog in the coming weeks is the changing shape of intellectual culture in a publishing and curatorial environment that is becoming less friendly to the printed object. For an urgent call to action about the demise of the book, see Jeffrey Hamburger and Anthony Grafton in this month's New York Review of Books on the threat to the University of London's Warburg Library.

22 comments:

Flavia said...

Love this post. Though I don't have your particular problem, since I'm rarely up before 9 (I teach late in the day and often write until 2 a.m.), I had to live without NYT delivery for my first 3.5 years in my current location and don't know how I'll manage when it goes web-only.

Anonymous said...

Good post, TR. I think you are doing the right thing. I have been getting the Kindle versions of the NYT and Wall Street Journal for about a year now, and am very satisfied. They are ready by 5AM, and you don't use up paper reading them (which I ussed to feel guilty about). The Kindle version is a little different in look and feel from the printed version, but it suits me fine. The ipad version should have more resemblance to the printed version.

If producing the physical paper is 80% of its cost, than both you and the publisher should save money by going electronic.

When I called to cancel my subscriptiion to the paper version of the NYT, the person on the other end managed to talk me into continuing to get the paper version on Sundays. Here it is 12:30 in the afternoon, and my paper still isn't here. Guess I'll have to crank up the ole' Kindle . . .

JackDanielsBlack

historydoll said...

I live in Manhattan and have been a subscriber to the Times for longer than I can remember--more than 30 years--and I will continue to read the print edition as long as I can. I thought you might like to know that my Sunday paper usually arrives around 8:30, so it's not just about living outside of NY.

Notorious Ph.D. said...

I don't get any paper of any kind, and I can agree with all the reasons for going electronic (especially with a portable, easy-read version). But I think I'd miss the sound of the newspaper. Yes, weighed against everything else, it's not much. But I'm like that with the smell of the library stacks, too.

Janice said...

I just fire up my web browser for morning newspaper fixes as our national paper doesn't get distributed in the neighbourhood until well after eight and the local paper is an afternoon delivery.

trixie dang said...

1: it's a little strange to hear that, as recently as the 1970s, the Inky was a decent paper. i ought to understand that the current trend in media conglomeration, monopolization, and evisceration is something that has happened within my conscious lifetime. but it's quite a thing to be reminded, now and then, that my conscious lifetime began somewhere between the OJ Simpson trial and the Last and Greatest of the Clinton Sex Scandals.

2: reading this post made me realize that i associate reading periodicals in hardcopy with a slower, more easygoing pace, found at my parents' kitchen counter in the not-quite-backwater of Pocumtuc Valley. which, riffing off Notorious PhD, makes me wonder whether an iPad app might be devised that crinkles appropriately, smells of newsprint, and leaves a slight gray residue on readers' fingers.

3: besides giving me the screaming willies, i have the nasty, overblown suspicion that the death of the Print Edition Periodical will lead to some really interesting essay questions for historiography courses 100 years hence. "Citing archives and primary sources wherever possible, describe what may have happened after the 20-teens, and why so little record was kept of it."

Historiann said...

One fact in this wailing nad gnashing of teeth about print media is that newspapers are still profitable--they're just no longer as astonishingly and insanely profitable as they used to be before the internet, Craigslist, etc. gave them some competition for local advertising and classified ads. So it's the *choice* of big media companies to fire reporters and churn out wire service-only content. But for-profit media companies are about the profits, not the public service.

I too am a huge a.m. newspaper fan. If I don't read it by 8, I won't ever touch it. It's like it's dead to me, or something. Fortunately for me, my paper arrives by 6 on the weekdays and 7 on the weekends. But I find that things get going out here in the Mountain Time Zone earlier than they do in the East, probably because of the time lag and the fact that everyone in NY and Chi is at work already. (It's pretty standard for working hours to start at 8 rather than 9 here, for example.)

That said: I already tip my newspaper carrier, but I'll make a note to bump it up this Xmas.

Comrade PhysioProf said...

I haven't subscribed to the print NY Times in years, but my recollection is that they used to deliver most of the Sunday Times sections on Saturday.

Needlelover said...

Once again, I thought, I have ended up in a backwater and will have to sell my house, quit my job and move back to New York to have the Life Worth Living.

Someone please reassure me this was 100% a joke and not even 1% parochialism.

Fun post but I'll confess some surprise that newspaper delivery was the epiphany of compromise.

Dan said...

I realize this is a minor point in your post, but why must you so unjustly bash fair Middletown? I went to Zenith from 1994 to 1998, and definitely had a Times subscription. I remember picking it up bright and early every day from some sort of communal receptacle with a combination lock.

Susan said...

And now even in MY backwater (much more backwater than Zenith, I promise you) we can get daily delivery of the NYT -- it has eased my mother's adjustment since she moved here from Long Island. I only get the Sunday times; I get my local paper, just so I know what the "parish pump" issues are when I have to vote.

But I'm with you. I like a physical paper to read, and I read more when I get the physical paper as opposed to reading online. Oh, and my Sunday NYT usually gets finished at dinner on Monday or Tuesday...

anthony grafton said...

Thanks to some unknown force or divinity, our daily NYT arrives early enough that we can read it with coffee, starting at 6:30 or so . . . It will be hard to give up our addiction and start the day without inky fingers. What I regret is the shrinking of the Sunday paper (and the time I have to read it): I remember my parents spending long happy hours wrapped in sections of the Times, eating bagels and lox, drinking coffee: it seemed as if it was a whole day's reading. That Times is gone. But then so is Sunday, which I usually spend, in the fall, writing letters of recommendation . . .

Tenured Radical said...

Needlelover: Doesn't that sentence seem a little bit too apocalyptic to be taken seriously? I know that reading the Radical is a skill acquired over time, so keep at it. Anyway, I have now lived in Connecticut for almost twenty years: it is parochialism I am resisting, not embracing, but I haven't left yet.

Dan: You were student, dear. Anyway, I didn't say the Times was unavailable in Zenith: they did not deliver it to faculty homes a mile away. Anyone who wanted to walk or drive to campus to pick up a paper could, I am sure; for faculty to do that in their pj's is explicitly prohibited in the faculty handbook.

Anthony: And the Monday paper is getting *really* thin. I knew things were getting dicey when they combined the Business section with the Sports section 5 days a week. The up side to that is that I have been reading the economic news ever since.

Brian W. Ogilvie said...

Here in Hadley, Mass., our M-Sat NYT usually arrives by 7 a.m., within half an hour of the Daily Hampshire Gazette--one of the few truly independent local papers left in this country. Our Sunday paper is usually at the bottom of the driveway by 8:00 a.m. though I must confess that I often don't retrieve it until after Wll Shortz's puzzle segment on Weekend Edition Sunday.

Of course I live in an area with a research university and four liberal arts colleges; otherwise I doubt that the print-format Times would be available other than by mail subscription.

jen said...

I just want to say this really spoke to me as a morning person who can't really start her day without the paper and a cup of tea. But an Ipad doesn't help those of us with rugrats who spill things (maybe we need a waterproof one?). Out here in LaLa Land, the NYtimes shows up on time (though of course, hours after the news is news). But you did make me realize if I cancelled the print copy I'd have an IPad in 6 months. Still, not the same. Good luck! Oh and PS: out here, we get the sunday paper on Sunday. i love it. But no real estate section, which I really really miss.

Firefly said...

I enjoy the Times. It Is The Times. Mine is delivered at 2:00 a.m. Sending the dogs into a barking frenzy for 5 minutes.
;-)

Needlelover said...

I assumed it was a joke, but I've met enough people who can't stop going on about the immeasurable superiority of New York (with more or less self-awareness) that I'm afraid I have to wonder. Especially when accompanied by paeans to the NYT. Some of these people even live in CT. I, however, love CT, so I'm glad that you genuinely enjoy living there. You didn't find your reply a little condescending, by the way?

Tenured Radical said...

(Imagine Miss Piggy voice) "Condescending? Moi?"

Needlelover said...

Cancelling your paper subscription probably better for the environment:

http://www.slate.com/id/2185143/

So, punctuality and self-righteousness in one fell swoop. Tell me that isn't a slightly attractive package.

Tenured Radical said...

As Comrade Physioprof would say,

"!!!!!!Eleventy1111!!!"

Needlelover said...

Since a newspaper isn't a book I don't have so many hang-ups about reading online (others may disagree), plus I do enjoy the self-righteousness :) (my last comment was a joke at my expense, btw, not a dig at you, in case that wasn't clear). But I'll admit I was surprised the environmental benefit isn't more significant, though from the Slate piece it's hard to know for sure.

GlassPen said...

Article on Warburg collection reminded me of the situation with the Barnes art collection, well documented in "The Art of the Steal" (available on Netflix). The Barnes collection was also controlled by a university with scant resources, and they got gobbled up by bigger fish. There will be a new museum, and the art will be--if anything--more available to the public, but the intention of the founder will be destroyed pretty thoroughly. (Note: do not trust the Pew Charitable Trust about anything!)

Possibly some creative soul can find ways of digitally linking items in the collection to replicate their proximity on the shelves...a variation on "the Amazon experience." Hotlinking and semantic enrichment of online text provide incredibly powerful tools for scholarship...and scholars have to do the work of identifying and linking...you really don't want to rely on text mining programs for this. Some may say this is a shortcut to true scholarship--I can't disagree--but it does make a lot of ideas more accessible to more people, which IMHO is to the general good.