Lincolnite

Bear with me…

About ten-eleven years ago I was the representative for our school district on the ‘Newspapers in Education Advisory Board’ for unnamed large “Newspaper A”. Basically, we assembled - about 10 of us, teachers from the area school districts - 4 times a year in a fancy board room way up in a high rise building. They plied us with a fancy free meal, and goodies like a crack at the review copies of books that no one on their staff could accept for ethical reasons, or baseball tickets or something of that nature. It was good times.

In return, they asked us tons of questions about what direction their newspapers in education programs should take in the coming quarter and year. They also wanted ideas for stories, topics of interest to kids, feedback on existing work, etc., etc.

I was a bit naive for a while, but after a couple years of casual conversation with the directors over dinner & a few drinks, a couple of things became clear:

1) The newspaper had no philanthropic desire to support education

2) They wanted as many teachers as possible to accept the free classroom sets of newspapers that came weekly. Every teacher that signed up was equal to 35 (or more) subscriptions.

3) The papers came even if school was not in session - all summer long. When teachers cancelled their NIE subscriptions, the papers still kept coming.

5) A couple of weeks a year, a truck would back up to the school, dump HUNDREDS of “free copies for all the students” and run before anyone could stop them. No one wanted them, they went straight to the dumpster.

WHY?

There are were weekly circulation numbers, and “sweeps week” circulation numbers that “Newspaper A” used to calculate how much they could charge advertisers. If the papers were printed - they counted. It didn’t matter who (if anyone) read he paper.

Dots starting connecting for me when “Newspaper A” denied that they were dumping unwanted papers and blamed it on 3rd party delivery men. They then refused to come pick up the “trash” and refused to pay when my school tried to invoice them for the recycling bill.

Shortly after that, their competitor at the time, “Newspaper B” ran a feature story about the practice of dumping papers to increase circulation numbers and the fact that it is illegal to do so. They cited examples from other cities in America, but clearly it was a shot across the bow of “Newspaper A” on the other side of the street.

All of a sudden, the papers stopped showing up.

Shortly after that the Advisory board ceased to be.

Shortly after that the Newspapers in Education program was scaled back considerably and went to almost completely nationally syndicated content.

Which brings us forward ten years and a few hundred miles down the road. I’ve been getting the same free copy of the Journal Star once a week for the past month or so, and while I don’t *know* why…

but I have a pretty good idea why.

...I don’t subscribe to the LJS, so the free Wednesday papers are just a bonus.  I didn’t know that they delivered those to people who already had subscriptions, though.  What a wasteful practice.

and…

you don’t tip your carrier?  Seems pretty mean to me, in the lines of stiffing your Village Inn waitress on a busy Sunday morning.

They throw a stack of 10 or so in front of the door to my apartment building.  Some of the other buildings also have them.  They’re gone within a day, so I’m guessing someone from the complex comes and picks them up.  The Journal Star should look inward for a solution to the global warming that their editorial board is obsessed with.

I was a newspaper carrier for 2-3 years in North Dakota. I lived for, and loved tips - but I worked hard for them. I never cut across a lawn, EVER. I left the newspaper right where the customer asked me to - inside the screen door, in the mail slot, or in the milk box (yeah, we still had those). I took pride in what I did, and my customers treated me very well. They also knew who I was.

Do I tip now? Not so much. I have no idea who my carrier is. All I know, is that my yard gets walked through, my plant beds get walked through and my rocks get kicked into the yard or all over the sidewalk, and periodically, I have to go hunt for the paper. Is it in the shrubs? On the sidewalk? In the grass? Who knows.

To use your analogy, if my Village Inn waitress didn’t keep my drinks filled, and spilled my food all over and acted as though she didn’t care that I was there, I’d stiff her on the tip, too.

I’m a good tipper, in general. I tip very well for great service. I start at 15% when I walk into a place, including on the tax, and I go up or down from there depending on service. I often am at 20-25%. My carrier is another story all together, and it is too bad.

I’ve called and written to the LJS to ask them to stop. even if I wanted a paper copy of a newspaper, it would not be the LJS. It is the worst paper I have ever seen.

As far as I’m concerned, this is the same as someone throwing garbage on my porch once a week. Maybe I should file a police report. They don’t seem to think they need to stop littering on a regular basis.

If I were to throw something on everyone’s porch once a week I guarantee I’d be arrested.

The sports section makes an excellent blotter for bacon. 

I use the ultra conservative global warming denier editorial page to pick up dog puke.

I am thinking of canceling my subscription cuz my carrier refuses to wear a flag pin.

We canceled our subscription but still get the free paper on Wednesdays. I would prefer it if they just cruised right on by my house, as it’s just more to add to the recycling.

Do you have the LJS recycling service?  Maybe that’s where they’re going with all the spam—they’re trying to convince you that you need a recycling service.

No we have Recycling Enterprises. The LJS tried to sell me on their stuff though. I told them that they couldn’t manage to deliver my paper consistently, and I don’t need the same kind of recycling service. I can leave my recycling on the curb and not have anyone pick it up for free.

get my charcoal chimney started! BBQ anyone?

Two good things about the LJS:
1)  the newsprint doesn’t get all over everything
2)  my delivery person ALWAYS gets the paper on my front porch.

The OWH carrier deliver the paper one snowy morning and missed the front porch.  Standing next to me she said “oh, that’s good enough”  I promptly told this adult that it actually wasn’t good enough and she seemed surprised, picked it up and threw it on the porch.  If we’re lucky it’s on our porch, which covers the length of the front of our house, once every two weeks.  Calling the OWH does absolutely no good, we’ve tried.

That pic looked like a severed limb early this morning.

That’s funny you said that. My 5-year old came in and I had the article on my screen, and she asked me if that was someone’s arm in the grass.

Another funny thing is that based on many postings in the past, you KNOW people at the LJS (and I don’t mean Neal, who freelances) are reading this blog. They clearly have to see that they have some “issues” (as would the Lazlo’s folks a couple days ago if they were reading).

To me, the silence on the part of the LJS folks speaks volumes.

As a former LJS staffer who could not be more pleased to be out of the mainstream media industrial complex, I can tell you that it is indeed about circulation numbers. There’s a “target area” (most of central Lincoln, I believe) where they bestow the unwitting/unwilling with “free” copies of the Wednesday paper, paid for various large advertisers.

Well, it’s *kind of* the Wednesday paper. To “make deadline” for those extra free issues, an early edition runs on the press around 9 or 10 p.m. So if it happened after, say, 4 o’clock, you won’t read about it in your free subscription.

More waste, less news. A good deal, no?

I get a weekend subscription, Fri/Sat/Sun so I have newspaper for my charcoal chimney too.  When the Wednesday paper began showing up I called and they said that Wednesday was their special promotion day.  I asked to be discontinued on Wednesday four months ago and I still get it every Wednesday.  They must be getting so much for the grocery store ads that they feel they can print it and deliver it for free and still make money.

It says on the free copy that it’s “courtesy of Hy Vee.” I wish Hy Vee would quit giving me newspapers and give me something good. A couple bottles of mid-grade scotch per year would be fine with me.

All LJS employees are required to take the paper to add a few drops to the circulation bucket.  There was a small monthly fee taken out of our paychecks for our subscription.  When I was employed there, I requested they save a tree and not send me one.  I was informed that the monthly fee actually paid for our “free” employee parking.  Fine, I said, I’ll just pay the fee and not have the paper delivered.  No can do, the monthly fee and the paper delivery and the parking were all linked in a chain that dare not be broken.

So I received my daily recyling-box filler at home, which mostly went unread as I always read the paper at work. 

I am now mercifully employed as a puppeteer at a non-profit puppet theater where I make more money than I did designing advertisements for a corporate-owned newspaper.  Hmmm.

I completely forgot everything else you said the moment I read

I am now mercifully employed as a puppeteer at a non-profit puppet theater

Sweet!