CLIPS: We heard you loud and clear: You want your paper (04/11/07)
March 8, 2008 – 12:25 pmBY DANIEL VICTOR
Of The Patriot-News
You’re mad, and we’re sorry.
Thousands of subscribers didn’t get their editions of The Patriot-News yesterday morning. A series of electrical problems at our production facility in Hampden Twp. caused papers to arrive late, or in some places, not at all.
You were upset, and we heard you loud and clear. A flood of about 4,000 calls crashed our phone system, leaving our technology department to recommend using our personal cell phones for outgoing calls.
“I think the only positive I can see out of this is that it really is a testament again to how important to many people the daily paper is,” said John Kirkpatrick, editor and publisher of The Patriot-News.
The Sports section, designed for smaller tabloid-sized pages, was awkwardly printed on larger broadsheet pages, requiring either scissors or savvy to navigate.
Other sections were shortened or moved from their normal locations.
The problems began late Monday night and continued through yesterday. The motors that drive the printing press wouldn’t turn on, stumping our press operators and the company that developed and installed the press, Kirkpatrick said.
Workers were able to fix one of the motors, which could run two of the seven press towers. The first papers were ready for delivery at 5:15 a.m., more than four hours behind schedule.
The delay complicated distribution; about 10 percent of our carriers were unable to deliver papers because of conflicts with their daytime jobs, said Kurt Hower, deputy director of our circulation department. Patriot-News staff members were delivering papers throughout yesterday. Hower said 90 percent of the papers in our core circulation area were expected to be delivered by 8 p.m. yesterday.
Papers were not delivered to Adams, Franklin, Juniata, Mifflin, Snyder, Northumberland, southern York and Schuylkill counties.
Subscribers who did not receive papers yesterday should have received yesterday’s paper today. Be sure to do the Cryptoquotes and Jumbles in order.
Executives struggled yesterday to remember the last time papers weren’t off the press by early morning. We were unable to print our Saturday editions on May 30, 1987, after an explosion and electrical fire under a Harrisburg street caused a 10-hour power blackout in a 10-block area of downtown.
In September 1975, The Sunday Patriot-News was not printed one weekend because of danger posed by rising water from Tropical Storm Eloise. Going back 35 years, six days’ editions were missed when downtown Harrisburg flooded during Tropical Storm Agnes in June 1972.
The problems with the printing press continued yesterday. But the press was partially operational last evening, leaving executives to predict that, barring late-night problems, you’ll have this paper on time today.
We hope.
