Something went seriously astray with the printing of Saturday morning’s Houston Chronicle. A whole bunch of papers arrived on doorsteps (or in flower beds) throughout the area without the Star (features) or (gasp) Sports section.
“We had issues with our presses and we had a lot of calls,” a Chronicle circulation rep said Sunday. Sunday, because repeated calls to the paper Saturday morning were greeted with a busy signal. By the time I got a call through it was to be graced with the message that the circulation department had shut down for the day and to call back tomorrow.
So on Sunday, I called back, to be told I wasn’t unique at all, although the rep didn’t know how many other papers were affected, although she said she knew there were a lot of them. Just that something had gone very wrong with the presses and as a result whole sections were left out of the paper. Oh and they had a problem with a lot of late papers as well.
All of which is terrifically poor timing for the Chron since it
has just announced a hike in its subscription rates and if you did get
through at all it was to hear a lengthy recorded set of instructions
that you don’t need to call about readjusting your home delivery
service — you can just go online to handle it.
About the only break the Chronicle got was that this didn’t happen during high school football season.
This article appears in Jul 2-8, 2009.
