Missing
The Portland Tribune -- a biweekly free newspaper that does a great job of keeping other media outlets in town honest -- is published twice a week, on Tuesday and Friday. At its very beginning, the paper offered free home delivery of both editions to many neighborhoods in Portland. After a very short time, however, the deliveries were cut back to Fridays only. For the Tuesday paper, you'd have to stop at one of the many boxes around town.
Alas, now even the Friday delivery has ceased, at least on our block here in inner Northeast Portland. That's not a good sign. Even for a faithful reader like myself, there's a certain inertia. I may read the web version of today's edition, but who knows if I'll remember to grab a hard copy out of a box between now and Tuesday? If I don't pick up a hard copy, I won't see most of the Trib's ads. If readers don't see the ads, people stop advertising. If people stop advertising, the paper folds, which would be a tragedy.
Is it just in my neighborhood, or has the Tribune given up on delivery entirely?
UPDATE, 2/9, 11:16 pm: I got it straight from publisher Dwight Jaynes himself: Home delivery is over.
It ain't the end of the world, I guess. The delivery served its purpose: it got people very aware of, and interested in, the Trib. It's probably danged expensive, and so they're likely thinking that the savings from pulling it will outweigh the costs of lost readership. We'll see.
I love the Trib and would hate to see anything bad happen to it.
| Posted at 9:45 PM | Permalink |
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Comments (7)
The Trib gave up on WWP's neighborhood months ago, first Tuesdays and then Fridays.
The low-rent districts like WWP's sad-sack zip code always go first in these kind of situations.
Fortunately, there are oodles of new newsstands to make up for it.
Posted by Worldwide Pabo | February 6, 2004 10:07 PM
For better or worse, I suspect perhaps they ditched delivery in favor of expanding the presence of their boxes into a greater number of neighborhoods, and into the suburbs (they've been pimping the latter fact in television ads).
Posted by The One True b!X | February 6, 2004 10:46 PM
I pick up the Tribune every Friday at the SW Community Center - Yesterday it wasn't there. Perhaps it is more than just the home delivery that is a problem.
Posted by TimC | February 7, 2004 11:38 AM
There is a Portland Tribune Box at the round-a-bout at the Law School if you want to pick one up there.
Posted by Broadway Joe | February 7, 2004 1:29 PM
This stopped a couple of weeks ago in the West hills, too. First Tuesdays, then Fridays. Bummer. I often don't make it out of the office to pick them up on the street.
Posted by ERISAweasel | February 8, 2004 9:56 PM
I read a brief article in Friday's O that said The Tribune had laid some editorial staffers off this week - 9 altogether, I believe, including Paul Duchene (the only one who went on record for the article).
It was a financial necessity, according to their general counsel. Duchene had this to add:
"It has never made money...it was a prestige product; it was not about cash."
I was afraid of this when I saw them discontinue Cue (features and business sections were worst hit, according to Duchene). It's very hard to get a new publication off the ground - doubly hard in this economic climate.
Posted by betsy | February 15, 2004 9:25 AM
I had no idea! Does anyone know how to get a hold of Paul?
Posted by Lindsay Magnuson | March 23, 2004 4:49 PM