Newspapers continue to go missing with the Post Office

By Randy Olson, newspaper publisher, written on Thursday, January 22

The Post Office continues to lose my newspapers. For 6 straight days this past week, the Post Office failed to deliver my Willmar/Benson/Spicer/New London newspapers. Multiple subscribers from those communities all received the January 15 issue in today's mail - today! Thursday, January 22. In November, the Post Office did the same thing the week before B-B-E's fall two-act play took place. I am still quite sore about that!

Let's stop for a moment and see how big the failures are. Each Wednesday night, without question, roughly 800 of my newspapers are delivered to the St. Cloud Post Office headquarters. They're separated in totes and bundles in highly organized fashion. It's been this way for decades. The next day, Thursday, subscribers all across central Minnesota are supposed to get my newspaper. Lately, that has not been the case (especially since 2021)...where do they put the newspapers? The January 15 newspapers designated for routes in Willmar, New London, Benson...where were they for the past 6 days? What do they do with them in St. Cloud? How bad can that organization be? It's insane.

Last night, Wednesday, the January 22 issues were brought to St. Cloud. Now the waiting game takes place to see where the heck the U.S. Post Office puts them before getting them to subscribers.

I'm not sure if we can keep the business going when our product is not delivered on time to our subscribers. It is killing us when our advertisers can't get their marketing messaging to the public in a timely fashion. If you add it all up, what this does is make the newspaper an unsustainable business venture.

There's saving grace here, at least a little - the Post Office has been breathing down my neck to spend $2,000+ on fancy software and a new system for the labels. I've been telling them: there's no way I'll invest that money if they keep losing my papers like they have been doing. So if nothing else, I've got a lot of bargaining power to push back on them!! They have to straighten out their organization.