Open letter to all readers

The winds of change are howling.

Last Friday, Aug. 18, was the last time our staff had the opportunity to see and inspect our newspapers before they entered the postal system. Effective with the Aug. 28 edition and for the foreseeable future, we will no longer be unloading totes and bundles of addressed newspapers off pallets and delivering them to the local post offices in Carrington and New Rockford.

Instead, our printing company will take all the print copies of both the Independent and the Transcript directly to the Fargo Post Office once they are printed, addressed and sorted.

As trucking companies have decided to reduce or eliminate service to our area, this became our only viable option for getting printed newspapers in the hands of you, our loyal subscribers.

Driving to Fargo and back each week to pick up newspapers is a task we do not have the staff or the time to do, especially in inclement weather. And yet it’s what we’ve been asked to do many times over the past few years when trucks wouldn’t run, and every week now that the last known viable company abruptly ceased local daily service. As of two weeks ago, no trucking company would commit to providing reliable overnight transportation from Detroit Lakes to Carrington, or even Jamestown.

With this change, the days of early print distribution on Saturday may be over as well. Since both the Transcript and Independent are Monday publications, the expectation is (and has been) that newspapers should arrive in reader mailboxes on Monday. And now, since the print copies will be traveling to the local post offices from Fargo, Saturday may become a transport day rather than a delivery day.

Our newsstand copies, meanwhile, will be shipped via UPS from Detroit Lakes. We won’t know when to expect them until the first few shipments arrive in New Rockford and Carrington. Plus, when the weather is not favorable for Friday UPS delivery, we will surely not see newspapers at our office until sometime Monday. Therefore, if you don’t see a new edition on the newsstand over the weekend, you know what happened.

It’s not all bad news though. On the plus side, this new process should get our newspapers into the regional mail distribution system sooner. Other than copies of the Transcript addressed to New Rockford residents and Independents for readers with Carrington addresses, all of our newspapers have been going straight to a USPS distribution center for processing before they are sent back to each local post office. Now, all the newspapers will go straight to the distribution center on Friday morning.

These decisions were not made lightly or easily. We want to do everything we can to facilitate timely delivery of our newspapers, and I have spent countless hours seeking out solutions.

As we have been navigating this process, I’ve been thinking about the history of newspaper printing in our small town. Prairie Press in New Rockford printed the Transcript, the Independent and many other area newspapers for decades. The press was located in the space now occupied by Taverna Electric, which means the Transcript was printed a mere two blocks away from the post office. Pressmen printed throughout the night and were able to get newspapers to the post office each morning no matter the weather.

It has been decades since our newspapers were printed locally. As operations consolidate and print shops close, the distance between newspaper publishers and their printing partners has grown. When I first purchased the Transcript, our newspapers were printed in West Fargo and then shipped to Jamestown. I personally made a late-night trip to Jamestown each week to help address, sort and bundle them, and I was back in New Rockford by 5 a.m. on Friday morning.

While I didn’t necessarily enjoy working in the middle of the night, I had peace of mind knowing that I had seen every addressed newspaper come off the label printer and knew there was one for every reader, every week. Now I won’t even be able to inspect the totes and bundles if I want to know if a newspaper was printed with John Smith’s address on it and sorted appropriately. I have to put complete trust in our mail service provider.

A publisher friend told me last week that this is the “opportunity cost” of living in central North Dakota. She, too, has issues with her newspapers arriving in readers’ hands on time. Her newspapers are printed in a town 40 miles away from the local post office, and she has experienced even more severe delays than we have.

It’s something that North Dakota Newspaper Association Executive Director Cecile Wehrman spoke directly to Congressman Kevin Cramer’s office about this past week. Some say the culprit is worker shortages, which are affecting every industry, including both transportation and publishing companies, and even the US Postal Service. There simply aren’t enough people to fill the open positions, and that affects our ability to conduct business.

As we make this transition, we want to hear from you. Specifically, we want to know if out-of-area subscribers start getting their newspapers sooner with this new system, as we know many of you wait 5-10 days to get your print copy in the mail. It would be a great benefit if this improves service delivery times outside our local area. I’m hopeful it will.

Send your newspaper delivery stories to [email protected] or [email protected].

Locally, we know that our postal carriers will get newspapers out to readers the same day they arrive at the post offices. I personally have subscriptions to both papers delivered to my home and both offices each week, so we know when they arrive.

Remember, if you miss an issue for any reason, you can always read it online. Print subscribers have 24/7 access to our website and digital edition for no extra charge. Go to either fosterconews.com or newrockfordtranscript.com and click “Free Trial” in the upper right corner of the page (in the black or blue bar). This is an invaluable benefit of modern technology that we are happy to offer you.

In the meantime, hang with us. We believe this is the best path forward given the challenges we face. We know that the majority of you like to read the paper in print, and we will do everything possible to keep ‘em coming. We might just blow away trying.

P.S. Is there a local trucking company that drives through Detroit Lakes, Minn. or Fargo on Thursday afternoons and arrives in Carrington or New Rockford on Friday morning? If so, call the Transcript or Independent office. I’d be interested in talking to you. We could support another small business and continue providing local service to our readers in Carrington and New Rockford. That would be a win-win.