Where's Your Paper?

Do you get your Crimson? A lot of your fellow students don't, at least not regularly. Circulation complaints are traditionally among the most common gripes about The Crimson. This semester, the situation appears to be especially bad. Instead of the occasional lapse in delivery, some readers like Tin Ming L. Hsu, a junior in Lowell House, find that it is the rare exception when they actually get their paper.

If you live in Cabot, it is especially likely that you haven't seen your favorite morning rag at your doorstep in a while. Katrina R. Tangen '01 writes, "I haven't gotten The Crimson in around two weeks, and nobody on my floor ever gets it." No need to take her word for it--five of her hallmates from H entry alone logged their grievances separately. The problem was deemed serious enough for the House Committee to discuss it and register a complaint: "Most of the entryways do not receive The Crimson in the morning--some entry-ways get it at their door, some occasionally see a pile of newspapers at the bottom of the stairs but the majority don't see one at all."

Most Crimson readers, of course, do not care enough to call every time they are missing their free copy. Subscribers to national newspapers who forked out 80-odd dollars for their annual subscriptions, on the other hand, tend to be a little more irate when they don't get their Times or Journal. David Amerikaner '01, who received his Wall Street Journal only twice in two weeks, writes, "I have been calling the Crimson...[and] have left four messages so far, none of which have been returned. I expect a full refund for all of the days our paper was not delivered." Navin Narayan '99, and his roommates in Adams, subscribers to the New York Times, echo Amerikaner's frustration: "We call frequently asking for redeliveries and the paper is usually not redelivered."

Crimson circulation managers and associates concede that there are glitches in the delivery system. Jessica S. Wu '00, a circulation manager at The Crimson, explains, "[Getting newspapers to students' doors] is a multi-step process. A lot of little things could potentially go wrong. Right now, the main problems are with access to the rooms and not having enough copies of the papers."

Citing the unreliability of the student deliverers, The Crimson subcontracted delivery responsibilities to Facilities Maintenance Operations (FMO) at the beginning of the last academic year. This move, in turn, brought its own problems with it. FMO custodians often do not know the nooks and crannies of house layouts as well as students themselves would know it. Hsu, for example, admits that she might not be getting her paper because "the doors in Lowell are dubiously marked."

The main logistical problem identified by most Crimson insiders, however, is in getting enough newspapers out to the various houses. Houses at the end of deliverers' routes, including Cabot, Adams and Lowell--the sources of most complaints--often do not get the paper because there are simply not enough papers left to go around. Eleventh hour problems with the presses and other technical hitches may result in fewer copies being printed than anticipated, in which case these areas get short--changed.

In the case of the Globe, The Journal or The Times, the logistical hassles are compounded by the need to coordinate with the local distributors of these papers. Crimson executives are all aware that a problem exists, and point to an unacceptably long lag time between new orders being placed and increased numbers of copies being delivered to The Crimson by the distributors. "We are just not getting enough national newspapers," says Nancy S. Chu '00, another circulation manager at The Crimson. "We sat down with representatives from The Globe and The New York Times last week, and told them we were very dissatisfied."

So, what is to be done about all of this? Some channels of redress already exist, and other solutions have been suggested by readers. One popular suggestion has been to leave a pile of Crimsons in the dining halls in addition to door drops. Though the Crimson currently does not print enough copies to enable them to do this, circulation managers admit it is a feasible option. "This is a good suggestion which we are looking into. It does not cost that much extra to print more copies," says Chu.

For subscribers to national newspapers, there are a couple of options if you do not get your paper. A redelivery service can be reached at 5-4774 or redelivery@www.thecrimson.harvard.edu by 11 a.m. on the morning of the missed delivery. The Crimson sends out an employee to buy a copy of the newspaper from the Square and deliver it to your room by 2 p.m. the same day. Failing that, you can contact the Circulation Office to complete a refund form, in which case The Crimson will write you a check for for the number of days missed.

Circulation staff anticipate that once the beginning-of-year fluctuations in the number of orders subside, there should be far fewer problems with national newspapers. Already, Amerikaner observes that delivery "has improved this past week, and hopefully will improve further in the future."

While none of these potential solutions will be a panacea to all circulation problems, let me leave you with a little perspective. The Crimson's circulation department is a half-dozen full-time students who, in their spare time, oversee the door-to-door delivery of more than 5,500 newspapers every day. Few comparable college newspapers attempt anything on this scale. The Princetonian only delivers to subscribers and the Yale Daily News merely leaves a bunch of papers at a central spot in the residential colleges, in spite of both papers having a readership an order of magnitude smaller than The Crimson's. Neither offers access to national newspapers on campus.

Let's give the folks at The Crimson some leeway, and let's work with them to solve some of these problems. As Chu puts it, "It's easy to see us as the bad guys. But we really are trying hard to fix these things, and we're not taking our jobs lightly.

Kaustuv Sen '99, The Crimson's Reader Representative can be contacted at readerrep@thecrimson.harvard.edu.