Bidding Adieu To My Wall Street Journal Print Edition
Newspaper journalists suffer from a misguided belief that reporting great stories is all you need for success. Yes, a good editorial product is critical for a newspaper to survive, but an equally important – and decidedly less glamorous – component is getting their take on the news out there before their audience has seen or heard it already elsewhere. When it comes to print newspapers, that means getting those trucks rolling out to the newsstands pretty early in the morning.
The Journal will soon be launching a special section devoted to New York City. Robert Thomson, the WSJ’s editor, must believe that his newspaper can dethrone The New York Times as the city’s most influential newspaper. ”My advice to New York Times readers is cancel your subscription, read it on the Web for free and buy The Journal,” Mr. Thomson recently told The New York Observer.
I won’t debate Mr. Thomson as to whether he can best the Times‘ local coverage – or even that of the Daily News or NY Post for that matter – but I will challenge him on his advice to buy the Journal. After being a loyal Journal subscriber for more than two decades, I recently threw in the towel – and not because of the extreme makeover the Journal has undergone since Mr. Thomson took over the paper. I simply couldn’t buy the newspaper when I needed it.
Although much has been written about News Corp’s transformation of the Journal into a mainstream newspaper over the last two years, significant changes to its distribution, at least in New York City, have largely gone unnoticed. During the 20 or so years I’ve lived in Manhattan, I always knew that when I opened my apartment door at 6:00 am, the Journal would there waiting for me. Further, I knew that calling the customer support center in Chickobee, MA to suspend delivery when going out of town would be a painless process.
Not anymore.
In the past few months, there have been big hiccups in distribution to my neighborhood. The newspaper hadn’t arrived by the time I left in the morning and were not yet available at the local newsstands. ”Not in yet,” is how the guy at the counter greets me most mornings when I stop by to try to grab the Journal. It seems I’m not the only one hearing it as he told me that he loses at least a half-dozen Journal sales a day because of the paper’s late delivery. I’d be much more understanding if I was out at 4:30 am looking for the paper or if the newsstand in question was out in the suburbs somewhere, but we’re talking 6:00 am in the middle of Manhattan.
Adding insult to injury, News Corp. has transferred the once-reliable customer care center to some incompetent outsourcing firm overseas. After 30 minutes on the phone with them trying to resolve my missed deliveries, I recently became so exacerbated I simply cancelled both my Wall Street Journal and Barron’s subscriptions (News Corp. owns both). Sadly, in the process I may have cancelled another subscriber’s subscription, as the woman on the phone called me by the wrong name. (Apologies to Mr. Levy, whoever you are!)
To be fair, I’ve had troubles in the past with my New York Times delivery, but the newspaper always managed to resolve the issue fairly quickly. It’s a good thing – since the paper is now my first-read of the day. As for the Journal, I read it online when I get to work.
Mr. Thomson, the WSJ editor I mentioned earlier, bragged to the Observer that the Journal is already “developing a closer relationship with an ever-larger number of women” and that the New York edition will help snag a broader array of readers. Maybe so – but he better hope they aren’t early-risers living in midtown Manhattan.