On the third page of the Lakeland Times, tucked between the crossword and an article, is a notice box with “Did Your Newspaper Arrive Late?” printed in thick, bold text.
It encourages people to contact their local postmaster and Congressman Tom Tiffany to report issues with the mail service.
“It's really a sad day in the news world when a simple newspaper can't be delivered. Somebody's got to do something, and we can't come up with any answers,” said Heather Holmes.
Holmes is the general manager of the Northwoods River News in Rhinelander and the Lakeland Times in Minocqua that are each published twice a week.
In her 25 years at the papers, she says she’s gotten her fill of complaints. But the last four years, those complaints have skyrocketed, especially among those outside the Northwoods.
“I have subscribers that call that don't get their papers for weeks, and they're very frustrated,” said Holmes. “All we can do is be empathetic and say, you know, ‘We're really sorry. We're working to get it resolved.’ Most people are kind in their response.”
Newspapers have been arriving two to three weeks late, sometimes multiple ones show up at the same time, or they don’t ever get delivered.
To be clear, Holmes does not blame local post offices saying they’re as frustrated by this as she is.
Instead, Holmes points to restructuring at USPS.
Shutting down the Wausau mail distribution center in 2021 was part of Postmaster General Louis DeJoy’s Delivering for America Plan.
Wisconsin and Viriginia were pilot states for the Local Transportation Optimization part of the plan that called for consolidating distributions centers.
“Once the Wausau hub shut down, all heck broke loose. Papers were all being routed to Green Bay, and that's where we feel most of the delivery issues have stemmed from,” said Holmes. “Probably the lack of employees down there, and the mass amounts of mail being shifted from Wausau and other hubs over to Green Bay. I don't believe that they can handle that amount of mail and newspapers coming through there and deliver them in a timely fashion.”
The issues with the U.S. Postal Service delivery delays are costing the Lakeland Times thousands of dollars.
While she can’t know every reason someone unsubscribes, Holmes estimates they’ve lost nearly 500 subscribers and $100,000 from subscription cancellations over the past four years.
Holmes often ends up crediting people for missed deliveries.
She’s also been hiring drivers to deliver papers to local post offices to ensure there’s not any delays or issues on her end.
On top of that, the price of USPS services has increased.
“If there was an alternative method, I certainly would be looking very closely at that. There's no sense of paying for subpar service,” said Holmes.
Lakeland Times and Northwoods River News Subscribers have access to an online edition, but Holmes says its not the same.
“When people want to read the newspaper, they want that feeling of newsprint in their hands, and they want what they paid for,” she said.
Not all local newspapers have that as an option.
“We are pretty old school here,” said Autumn Hill, publisher and owner of the Iron County Miner newspaper and printing business in Hurley.
Multiple newspapers face the same issue
The Iron County Miner is supposed to be delivered every Friday and only available in print.
Hill says there’s generally a two-to-three-day grace period for deliveries, but the two to three weeks delay they’ve been experiencing lately is frustrating.
“That's really a problem when you're in the news business, because one thing about the news is that you want it to go to your consumers or your subscribers in a timely manner,” said Hill. “We have events in our newspapers. We have obituaries. People are looking to see when is that event coming up, or when is that memorial service?”
Hill, who also relies on USPS to deliver the Iron County Miner, says complaints about delayed deliveries have increased significantly recently, especially from subscribers outside Iron County.
She worries it will lead to people canceling their subscriptions and hurt her business.
“We employ six people here in the City of Hurley. We’ve been in business for 139 years, and we'd like to continue for at least 139 more. Things like this that make it harder to do business are really frustrating for us,” said Hill.
Hill says she tried working with USPS to resolve this issue, but her complaint got pushed to her local post office who was told they had three days to resolve the issue.
“I got frustrated at that point, because the other thing is, I don't think three days was long enough to solve this problem, because obviously it's a bigger problem, because we're not the only newspaper experiencing this issue. I think just mail in general across the state has been delayed as well,” said Hill.
Like Holmes, Hill doesn’t believe the issue is at her local post office.
“We have no issue with our local post office. In fact, we love our local postal workers,” said Hill.
Other newspapers in northern Wisconsin are facing similar issues. The Mellen Weekly Record in Ashland County reported hearing from subscribers less than 30 miles away that their newspapers have been delivered two to four weeks late. The Vilas County News-Review is also experiencing delays.
After getting nowhere with the Postal Service, Holmes and Hill reached out to Congressman Tom Tiffany and Senator Tammy Baldwin’s offices in hopes of resolving the issues.
Lawmakers call for change
Tiffany told WXPR his office currently has “several open inquiries with the USPS and are continuing to push for answers. The implementation of the Delivering for America Plan has led to reduced services and negatively impacted postal performance, especially in rural areas. Veterans, seniors, and many rural populations depend on the USPS, and it’s clear that changes need to be made.”
Last week, Baldwin sent a letter to Postmaster General Louis DeJoy calling on him to reverse course on the Delivering for America Plan.
It read, in part, “Despite your promise that the Delivering for America plan would modernize and transform the Postal Service, your policies are merely diminishing the quality of customer service and creating significant mail delays, including for rural newspaper delivery.”
WXPR reached out to USPS about Baldwin’s letter and the issues local newspapers have been experiencing.
We were told they’d respond to Senator Baldwin directly.
Delayed newspaper deliveries are just the latest complaints about USPS service.
Rural areas in particular have raised concerns about delays in bills and medication. More recently, there’s been concerns that absentee ballots won’t be sent and returned in time to be counted.
Congressional hearing
The concern around elections led to a House Appropriations subcommittee holding a hearing Thursday.
While most of the hearing centered around how DeJoy would ensure there were no disruptions to elections, the conversation also turned to larger issues within USPS.
Wisconsin Congressman Mark Pocan told DeJoy consolidating things to Green Bay wasn’t working. He pointed out statistics that show Wisconsin’s two-day delivery services dropped from 91.5% to 70.5% since the consolidation. Three-to-four-day delivery fell from 86.2% to 67.9%.
“Your mission is not necessarily to reduce costs. Your mission, first and foremost, is to deliver mail. But if we're having this reduced delivery because of processing centers and now because of this pilot project that you're going to take national, that's my concern,” Pocan told DeJoy.
Later on in their exchange, Pocan asked DeJoy how he can see these numbers and the drop-in service and justify expanding the program nationally.
DeJoy said pilots are meant to be a test.
“The first rockets that went to the moon blew up,” DeJoy said.
Pocan responded, “Thanks for blowing up Wisconsin.”
Pocan also asked Dejoy about Baldwin’s letter and the newspaper delivery issues in northern Wisconsin.
“I don't know about the Wausau closing. We have plenty of plants and facilities in Wisconsin. I also know that the periodical industry is under significant duress. I also know that I tape a quarter to every periodical I deliver. That's how much we lose on every single periodical,” said DeJoy.
When Pocan pressed more about the two-week delayed deliveries, DeJoy said, “I don’t buy that.”
Pocan ask DeJoy for a plan on how he will fix issues the pilot program created in Wisconsin.
At this point, Hill is hoping if enough people voice their problems with the postal service that change will come.
“I guess I'd like people to be aware that there are major changes being made to the United States Postal System, major changes that are severely affecting and impacting not only when you get your mail or if you mail a bill, does it get there on time, but It's also really negatively impacting a lot of businesses around the state of Wisconsin,” said Hill.
