The Oglethorpe Echo
We suspect your community newspaper, The Oglethorpe Echo, has used the U.S. Post Office more than anyone in the county. Since 1874, the newspaper has partnered with the post office to deliver your weekly editions of the news.
And for as long as we can remember, we’ve listened to folks fussing about the mail service.
Now we are joining in the chorus, chanting: “What’s wrong with the mail? Why is the service so unpredictable?”
Never in our 150 years of depending on our partner to deliver the news have we seen more snafus or heard more complaints. Something is amiss with the mail service. Our phone doesn’t stop ringing with complaints of “where’s my paper?”
That harping tells us this:
- The Oglethorpe Echo is an important part of the lives of our readers. They can’t wait to get the latest edition. And we take seriously our role as the community’s most complete and reliable source of news and information.
- Our readers are just as dismayed and frustrated with the mail service. Even more aggravating is the lack of service. It isn’t just newspapers that are affected. We have seen cases where first-case mail has taken three weeks — and longer — to travel 3 miles.
An old-timer, who loves reading The Echo, fumed while standing in our office: “This is bad enough to make a preacher cuss.” Indeed, it is.
So, what are we doing about it?
We haven’t reached the cussing stage, but we’ve taken your complaints to heart. We pay a large amount of money for the newspapers to be mailed each week. As any customer would, we expect to get what we’re paying for, i.e. acceptable service.
Let’s be clear. This unacceptable service is not the fault of the local post offices. The clerks and carriers can only deliver what is put in their hands. Somewhere in the vast system, mail is sorted, shuffled and often takes the longest route to wherever it is supposed to go.
The Athens post office is our region’s distribution center, but sometimes the mail is routed through Atlanta, which causes further delays. And sometimes, we — and maybe they — don’t know where the mail goes.
A good case in point is the newspaper being mailed to our readers in Carlton, which is serviced out of the Elberton post office. No one can explain what’s happened to those editions in the past couple of weeks.
So, what is The Echo doing about this mail fandango?
We are in constant communication with the Athens post office. Not only do we call and visit with the postmaster, The Echo sends a spreadsheet with names and addresses of readers who didn’t get their newspapers on a timely basis.
That information is emailed to the postmaster every Tuesday morning, in advance of the next edition. We have his promise to personally investigate the complaints. But we don’t stop there. If a reader doesn’t get his or her newspaper, we immediately mail another copy.
Many of our readers have a backup plan. If they provide their email addresses, those subscribers get a complimentary electronic edition on Wednesday, the same day the newspapers are mailed from Athens.
As reliable as the e-edition is, some readers want to hold the print edition in their hands. And we want them to do that.
We are grateful for your loyal readership and support of your 150-year-old newspaper. If we had another choice other than the post office, we’d explore using it.
Unfortunately, we’re dependent on the postal system. And if we had a magic wand, we would have started waving it a long time ago.
Considering the percentages, the vast majority of the newspapers are delivered. But when a single subscriber doesn’t get his or her copy of The Oglethorpe Echo, it’s important — very important — that we correct the matter.
We wish the post office was as quick and diligent as problem solvers. In the meantime, thank you for your patience and understanding.