STOWE – The News and Citizen, distributed free throughout Lamoille County and in neighboring Caledonia and Orleans County towns, announced last week that the paper will no longer be delivered to U.S. Post Office boxes.
The change was made “with you, the reader, in mind,” wrote the paper’s parent company, Vermont Community Newspaper Group (CNG) in an editorial that appeared in the July 10 edition. Due to months of reader calls, emails and visits “from readers who haven’t received their papers in a timely manner, delivery to P.O. boxes will stop.”
The paper will be available in more local outlets on Thursday, the same day it arrives from the printer. A list of over 30 places to pick up a copy of the paper appears in the editorial and is available at its web site, vtcng.com.
“It’s also important to note that rural route addresses currently receiving the paper will still get them every week,” said the editorial. It also noted that readers will “continue to find every paragraph and pixel online.”
While sharing benefits of the change for readers, the editorial acknowledged there’s a financial reason for making the change as well. As timely post office deliveries have declined, the cost of those deliveries has increased, “it’s a decision made with an eye to our company’s bottom line, even as the delivery speed has been declining, postal rate increases have been skyrocketing.”
The importance of having local news was shared in the editorial too. “As a weekly printed newspaper, our advantage over television stations or digital-only newsrooms is and always has been our boots-on-the-ground presence in the communities we cover. As we often say in the weekly newspaper biz, we might not get there first, but we can do it better, and we’ll stick around long after the other folks have left town.”
Paul Fixx is editor of The Hardwick Gazette and lives in Hardwick.
