Reader ES sent the following email after returning home from a few days away on business to find his driveway littered with unsolicited Star-Ledgers in yellow plastic bags, tossed from passing vehicles. Note the questions he raises.
What do you think should be done? After reading of his experience and issues, post your COMMENT or SUGGESTION in this week's POLL SECTION (upper right hand column on the CLIPS page).
PT and others have remarked before, and repeatedly, about the declining readership of print versions of newspapers -- even as readers flock to their online editions.Without my warning or my knowledge, The Star Ledger saw fit to begin delivering one month's worth of their newspaper on my driveway -- presumably as an enticement to gain a new customer. I came home from a brief trip out of town to find several papers on the driveway screaming out "Nobody's home!". Had the house been vacant for 30 days, I could only imagine what the collection yellow plastic bags would have looked like. Thanks, Star Ledger for inviting the uninvited. I also noticed quite a few other driveways in the neighborhood are decorated with the same yellow bag of newsprint. I thought we were making progress in getting to a cleaner Plainfield; it's quite an ugly site.
One of the papers had a letter from George Dyevoich, their Home Delivery Manager, telling me to enjoy all this litter from 2/4 thru 3/3! A P.S. put the onus on me to call them to stop the delivery if that's what I wanted. (at 888 782-7533) When I called, I had to go thru their interactive voice system to get to a representative in the circulation department. After being on hold for an aggravating 20 minutes, they wanted to know my name, address and phone number in order to stop delivery. Are they serious? I have an unlisted number. I did give them my address and an emphatic message: "cease delivery now and forever". Let's see if and when that message gets thru.
I get ALL my news on-line and on CNN. I would like to think that helps slowdown the pollution and waste we create. In a mass scale, it would really help. But it's really about exercising my freedom of choice. You may not see this as a big deal, but like the unsolicited flyers, bags of gravel, menus and other stuff that sits on my front door from time to time, it's litter and more importantly, an invasion of my privacy...
First, dear reader, disabuse yourself of the idea these are wonderful people who simply live that you should have news. They are businesses that live to make a profit for their owners -- primarily through the sale of advertising. If the news is compelling enough to keep you coming back, chances are the advertisers may also get some nibbles from you. Or so the reasoning has been for the past 130 years or so.
The Internet has changed all that. People are becoming accustomed to getting their news online, in near-real time, and pretty much breezing by the ads. And it is the challenge to the advertising income that has the papers scrambling.
The old sack-in-the-driveway pitch for new subscribers is just that -- literally OLD, and literally a PITCH of the paper.
In sales, it's called cold-calling. It's pretty much a first-cousin of those annoying timeshare and financial planning phone solicitations you used to get just as dinner was being served. But that was in the days before the do-not-call list, which has eliminated 99.999% of PT's phone hustles.
Should something similar be done with regard to newspapers and advertising circulars that are regularly pitched in our driveways? Is the practice, as ES suggests, an invasion of our privacy? An annoyance? Or a useful service? What kind of business sense does it make to solicit a customer and then hide yourself behind a phone-tree-from-hell-system? Lastly, if the pile of yellow bags invites unwanted attention -- say that of a burglar -- who is responsible should you suffer any loss?
Stroll on by the POLL SECTION (upper right hand column on the CLIPS page) and EXPRESS YOUR OPINION. This week will be a SURVEY instead of a yes/no poll, so feel free to sound off on ES's issues.
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4 comments:
When we are away on vacation, we always ask a neighbor to pick up our mail and the Courier, NYPost and any other advertisements. We don't even like the P.O. to know we're away. That, with plenty of lights going on and off as though we were home, in 20 years here, we have had no problems.
I travel frequently. Thus, I stop subscribing to local newspapers many years ago when my delivery persons became adults rather than teenagers.(I buy papers each day and this is more expensive than subscriptions but I feel more safe). I don't wish to share my travel schedule with adult delivery persons. I get my neighbors to collect my mail and I pay a neighborhood younster to collect and descard all "wrappers" left in my driveway. Lights all over the house are on timers and I've experience no problems so far.I should not have to call to ask that papers cease to be belivered when T did not ask for them to be delivered in the first place! I think that the local newspaper companies are just asking to be sued.
I think someone should pick up all the unwanted papers, follow the scoundrel to HIS house, then put them all in HIS driveway. Maybe someone will get the message. As a side note, I get the Ledger delivered daily .. and when it rained, the paper was unreadable. Sooooo .. I used the VRU to report it, EVERY DAY IT RAINED .. needless to say, now my paper comes double wrapped on the rainy days. I guess they got tired of "crediting my account to reflect the error" .. hehehe
I shouldn't have to engage my neighbors to police my property when I travel. Why should they be inconvenienced any more than they already are by having to clean up this stuff on of their own property? I'd just as soon find a way to stop receiving all this junk.
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