Monday, December 15, 2008

Anchorage Daily News drops rural delivery -- updated

The Anchorage Daily News is ending delivery to Alaskan "bush country."

Add to the list of metropolitan newspapers that will no longer claim statewide circulation the one with the largest territory, the Anchorage Daily News. After Sunday, Dec. 28, the McClatchy Co. paper will no longer use air freight to ship about 1,500 copies of the paper to communities that are off the road system, places known in Alaska as "the bush."

"Most communities served by air will lose service," reports Jay Barrett of Alaska Public Radio, quoting a Daily News executive as saying "air freight costs are just too high to continue the service . . . $25,000 a month." Air will still be used to ship copies to the large, outlying towns of Fairbanks and Valdez and the state capital of Juneau. Oil companies already pay to ship coipies to Prudhoe Bay, at the north end of the vast state. Pat Branson, who works at the senior center on Kodiak Island, which will lose service, told Barrett, "We can get certain excerpts of the paper online, but it's not having the paper in your hand. There's a big difference." The paper has an online PDF subscription for $10 a month...
UPDATE: is this a compassion issue?

Previous:

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

The Wall Street Journal
-Curtailing home delivery-

"Curtailing home delivery would bring the ….papers much needed savings, but would also [carry considerable risk.] At a time when newspapers are fighting to retain readers, steering those readers online instead of delivering their paper to the door could cause them to lose the habit of reading a paper daily."

Anonymous said...

This is serious. Very serious. It is cold up there and a good fire starter is important. Have these people no compassion?