After living in Clark County for more than 30 years, I have come to enjoy the fall rain. But I don’t enjoy getting a wet newspaper.
We’ve been having some trouble with that issue lately, after we switched most of our print customers from porch delivery to driveway delivery.
Frankly, we made the change for financial reasons. With this system, newspaper carriers can throw the paper without having to park, climb out of the car, drop the paper, get back in the car, refasten their seat belts and drive away. Because routes can be longer, the carriers can earn more money for their efforts, which take place at an inconvenient time of day. And because it keeps them in the car, it provides them with a better margin of safety.
Back to those wet newspapers. We had been using a thin, clear plastic bag for porch delivery, and it seemed to work fine. But left out in the elements, it can leak, and, voila, wet newspaper.
So we have been trying some new blue-colored bags. They’re thicker. In fact, they are so thick and watertight, you can use them as water balloons.
The problem with the blue bags comes when the carrier throws them onto gravel or rough concrete. The bag scuffs easily and then leaks.
Our circulation director, Rachel Rose, said this week that we are still researching options to reduce this wet paper problem. I noticed on the wettest days this week, my carrier double-bagged my Columbian, then tied a knot in the outer blue bag. The paper stayed dry, and I am saving the extra blue bags for when we babysit my daughter’s new dog later this month.
Thank you for being patient with us while we continue to find a longer-term solution to the wet papers.
Dry news, guaranteed
Of course, one way to receive your newspaper completely dry is to read us online. Subscribers to our print edition receive access to our digital products at no extra charge. If you haven’t activated your account, visit www.columbian.com/digital. If you have trouble registering for any of these products, call us at 360-694-2312 or email circulation@columbian.com.
We offer a lot of ways to get our news online. Here are the three best options for subscribers:
• Use our app to get news on your mobile device, such as your cellphone. The app is “responsive,” meaning it detects the size of your screen and displays stories and photos so you can read them. You can also get news alerts through our app.
• Use our website, www.columbian.com, when you are on your computer. We redesigned the site last year so that it looks good and loads rapidly.
• Use our e-edition, which is the faithful digital replica of our printed newspaper, anytime you don’t want to put on your slippers to fetch the paper from your driveway. It’s at epaper.columbian.com, and can also be found under “extras” when you click the menu button on the top of our website. Unlike the app and website, you’ll find the comics, puzzles and even the Sunday Parade magazine with the e-edition.
Digital extras
But wait: There’s more! The e-edition is not quite a faithful digital replica of the printed newspaper. It contains extra pages that we don’t have room to print!
On Tuesdays, you will find a full page of NFL box scores from weekend games, along with league standings and extra pro football news.
On Tuesdays through Saturdays, the e-edition contains our Money & Markets page, which we had to drop from the print edition back in March. There’s a list of closing prices for stocks our readers follow, along with commodities prices, market summaries, foreign exchange and interest rates.
On Sundays, you’ll find two bonus pages containing a weekly review of financial markets and mutual fund prices.
Remember, these extras are free to print subscribers. You just need to activate your digital account.
However you choose to read the news, thank you for being our subscriber. We really like what we do, and enjoy serving our customers as best we can.
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