If you’re a subscriber to the Boston Globe, the person who delivers your paper on Sunday may well be the same person who wrote part of it.
Dozens of reporters and editors at the Globe are planning to pitch in with Sunday’s deliveries due to widespread delivery problems for the past week.
“I’m a Globe employee. I’m also a reader angry with 0 papers at home this week,” NHL beat reporter Fluto Shinzawa tweeted. “I’ll be out helping to get you Sunday’s Globe. Stay with us.”
Earlier this week, some staffers volunteered and it “looks like the offer has been accepted,” technology reporter Hiawatha Bray told CNNMoney.
The details of the plan aren’t known yet. But there was a growing email chain on Saturday to sort out the delivery strategy.
“Yes it has come to this,” columnist Farah Stockman tweeted, journalists “getting up at 4 am to do what a company evidently can’t: deliver the paper.”
Assistant metro editor Anica Butler replied, “Actually, I think we’re supposed to show up at midnight to get our paper routes!”
Nonetheless, Felicia Gans, a metro reporter, said plenty of people had raised their hands: “There are 65+ emails in my Globe inbox from reporters & editors, volunteering to deliver tomorrow’s papers. So much love for Boston Globe.”
Another editor, Steven Wilmsen, said an “army” of journalists was volunteering.
Globe crime reporter Evan Allen quipped that she was going to “start warming up my throwing arm in preparation for all the Boston Globe Sunday papers I’ll be slinging tonight.”
Her “delivery partner,” Milton Valencia, picked out special gloves for the occasion:
The Globe itself reported that the trouble started on Monday when the company switched to “a new delivery company.”
In a story on Thursday, the Globe said “missing papers” across the local area “prompted an outcry from readers, who vented on social media and overwhelmed the Globe’s phone system with complaints.”
According to Bray, the phone system “crashed” and reporters “found it difficult to call outside the building.”
“Many readers got busy signals,” he added. “One regular reader of my column managed to get through to me and begged me to do something. I and a bunch of my colleagues contacted our CEO and said that reporters were so concerned about the problem that we’d be willing to help deliver the paper.”
A Globe spokesperson, contacted by CNNMoney on Saturday night, said the company would comment on the delivery situation sometime later.
In the meantime, a smattering of readers expressed gratitude to the newspaper staff online, and a couple joked about brewing coffee for their delivery person.
“This actually makes me want to subscribe,” Andrew Moss wrote.
Others wondered if it was all just a publicity stunt. To that, Globe web producer Sean Smyth had a retort:
And Matt Viser, a political reporter, had a “warning” to local politicians:
“Boston Globe reporters will soon be at your doorstep … to deliver your newspaper.”