Stephanie Nicholas now serves as the circulation director for the Richmond County Daily Journal.
There’s few worse feelings than walking to your mailbox for an expected package or gift and promptly trudging back up the driveway empty-handed. That disappointed feeling could be even stronger when it’s an item that has an expectation of being delivered on set days each week and it fails to turn up.
Unfortunately, that’s become an all-too familiar feeling for our subscribers of the Richmond County Daily Journal. It’s a recurring issue that has only become worse over the past few months, and please know that it’s a concern that we are working diligently to fix.
From formerly being a daily newspaper, to the disruptions caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, to now the post office delivering the paper, there have been a lot of changes to the distribution of your local newspaper in a brief window of time. Still, there are little excuses that can be made for when a newspaper is delivered days late, if it’s even delivered at all.
Our sales representative, Stephanie Nicholas, will now serve as our circulation manager, a position that hasn’t been filled in over a year. It will be her job to ensure that loyal subscribers of the Daily Journal will faithfully get their paper every Wednesday and Saturday.
Yes, this is a problem that isn’t an easy fix. There are many moving parts involved in delivering a quality newspaper and many of those parts are unfortunately missing. Nationwide, there are job shortages in many essential areas, from the school system to restaurants to manufacturing to delivery services; your local newspaper is not immune to this issue. But please know that we are working diligently to work on these issues and reach a point where our subscribers don’t have to question if their newspaper is tucked into their mailbox or not.
We all know that print newspapers are becoming rarer each day. Editor & Publisher released an article in November stating that more than half of U.S. counties have no or limited access to local news, and an additional 200 counties are at substantial risk of losing their local news sources and becoming “news deserts.”
Since 2005, the U.S. has lost nearly 2,900 newspapers. The nation is on pace to lose one-third of all its newspapers by the end of next year, and the U.S. has lost about 43,000 of its journalists over the last 18 years.
These are alarming statistics, but it’s only more of a responsibility incumbent upon the Daily Journal that we do the very best we can to maintain your trust and continue to deliver a high-quality newspaper. Making sure that a newspaper is delivered promptly and when it’s expected is no small task, but it’s one that is crucial. Not only do our subscribers need to trust that the stories and quotes included in the paper are accurate and fair, they also need to know that a subscription that they purchased will deliver on its promise.
We hear and understand your frustrations and are working diligently to get to the root of this issue. While we know that our print publication is what most of our readers look forward to, please note that www.yourdailyjournal.com is uploaded daily with content. And while we are no longer a daily newspaper, you can still get local news delivered straight to your email each non-print morning by subscribing to our newsletter, which comes out every Tuesday, Thursday and Friday. Additionally, we are busy updating a list that will provide the name of every store and business that has copies of the Daily Journal available for you to pick up at your convenience.
Thank you for being a reader of the Daily Journal. We can’t promise a quick fix, but we will work hard on finding the solutions needed to make sure that the Daily Journal gets to your home. If you have a question or concern, please do not hesitate to call Stephanie at (910)-817-2675.