Outside the Democrat-Herald building on Sunday, June 18, 2023. The private street sign in the parking lot honors the late Glenn Cushman, the publisher from 1968 to ’88.
The way I figure it, Albany has had a daily printed newspaper for 135 years. That era is about to come to a close.
Subscribers of the Albany Democrat-Herald this month got a letter annnouncing “enhanced print editions” starting the week of June 26. The gist of it was that the printed paper would come out only on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays.
And copies would no longer be delivered. Instead they would come in the mail.
But according to the letter, the three-days-a-week paper would be bigger, “with more content, more sections, and more pages.” And of course there would be constant content available online, all day every day.
Everything in life changes if you wait long enough, so this can’t come as a big shock, even to the remaining print subscribers.
Newspapers everywhere are shrinking or disappearing. Like most of life in general, the audience and almost all advertisers have gone to the Internet. The companies publishing papers are trying to follow.
Every October newspapers with second-class mail permits publish statements of ownership and circulation.
For the Democrat-Herald, paid distribution of the printed paper last Oct. 1 was 3,501, down about 200 from the average during the preceding year. But the number of paid electronic subscriptions had grown to 2,642.
(For comparison, Albany has about 21,000 households, Linn County nearly 50,000.)
For the Corvallis Gazette-Times, the same operation as the D-H but accounted for separately, paid circulation of the printed paper was down to 2,853, while electronic circulation was up to 4,038.
Years ago, when I worked for the Democrat-Herald, I assembled some notes for a talk about the history of Albany papers. As near as I can make out my notes, it was Fred Nutting, then the editor and owner, who turned the Albany Democrat into a daily in May 1888.
Publishing a daily newspaper paid off for more than a century. It no longer does, no mattter how much I’ll miss pulling the paper out of the box each morning to see what they’ve done with it now. (hh)
It’s sad seeing the Democrat Herald delivered only three days . I grew up in Albany every year another tradition is going away .. I miss the old days
It’s sad to see Democrat Herald go down to three days .. computers have ruined the newspaper business ..
I grew up here and in the 60’s for a few years I delivered the DH on my bike.
Later it was the Oregonian, also on my bike, except on some extra heavy Sundays my day would help me with his Buick station wagon.
Each month us paper boys would have to go door to door to collect payment for that month’s sub. It was all on the paper boy. Around Maple and Walnut and Vine, Elm etc…a certain few houses would always try to duck the paper boy (there were no paper girls that I know of…no non binary either) and not answer the door/not pay.
In those cases it was the paper boy who took it in the shorts.
Maybe we should ask for reparations. Oh the injustice!
I’m using s pseudonym from fear of expressing my right to free speech (more reparations due) …not something the leftoids understand as they’re still in the clear – for now. Leftoids enjoy free speech and impunity from most criminal prosecution.
Not sad to see these propaganda machines go. It didn’t used to be this way.
Edit: Should have said IMMUNITY duh…
Todays vocab lesson: They operate with IMPUNITY because the have IMMUNITY and they live in the community. (which should scare you.)
I enjoy the daily paper of the DH and GT but nothing is being said about the Effects it has now had on every single carrier that by 6:30 am on the 25th will no longer have a job.
I get both and for the paper itself, the ritual of walking out to the box to retrieve the paper in all weather forms, to greet the new day, we will miss that! That first cup of coffee with the paper is a tradition!Thanks for the memories!!
I grew up here in Albany and was one of many who delivered this fine newspaper. It was a great first job. Yes it is sad to see print newspapers go away. Thank you for the memories.
Let’s be real – we’re dopamine junkies. Printed daily newspapers can’t compete with the continuous feel-good rush provided by digital news sources viewed on cool devices.
One author called the smartphone the “modern-day hypodermic needle.” Every second is an opportunity to be stimulated.
Consequences be damned.
This is really terrible. You know not everyone has the computer or a smartphone. Plus the paper is now putting a lot of people out of work. And the days they have it coming out what about the ads? Also mailing it?! Our mail is not always on time so something comes out then we’re going to get the news 3 or 4 days later? This is just ridiculous.
So Deb, are you reading this on a computer or a cell phone,
that is one of the reasons that they are circling the drain,another is that they are left wing only, and will take things out of context to trash conservatives, it happened to me 11 times over the years,
Same thing with magazines, which I enjoy more. I used to love newspapers, used to get the Oregonian in the morning and D-H in the afternoon when it came then. But in the age of digital high tech, the print is old news by the time you get it. And as for the D-H, its decline started when they let you go, Hasso. That’s when I stopped reading it.
Well when you have a left leaning paper, the paper’s name says it all, and your mother office is in Ohio, which is very removed from Oregon, what do you expect?
It’s in Iowa.
Democrat-Herald and Gazette-Times are but two brands of Lee Enterprises.
They have 77 brands nationwide. Albany is a speck of dust to them.
To be honest, I stopped taking the DH about 35 years ago due to incompetent carriers.
When they “removed” you and put the GT in control, I knew I wasn’t going back. It just became the Albany Daily Barometer.
Count me among those who will miss the daily routine of morning coffee + newspaper. But while I am sorry for the change, it’s easy to understand it; young people stopped learning to look at a printed paper as a go-to source of news — or any kind of source — a long time ago. There’s probably still a way for a printed newspaper to make some money, but likely that’s only as a niche product akin to vinyl records (we don’t buy buggy whips or razor strops in any kind volume anymore either). Hasso, I’m glad you and I got to experience the glory days of newspaper work. Thanks to you and all of our other colleagues for making the DH such a quality paper and such a fun place to work.
I subscribed to the DH in hopes of getting local news. I got a lot of syndicated, irrelevant filler content. Your blog sometimes had more coverage. I don’t fault the reporters for bad business decisions. It’s too bad true local journalism has decreased so much.
My family and I have had the DH delivered for over 70 years. The change made by Lee Enterprises will result in loss of jobs(carriers), reduced overhead cost and create an extra burden for already overburdened USPS mail carriers. If I feel that I am paying more for getting less, then I will sadly end a 70 year subscription tradition. I assume that is not the outcome that the DH or Lee Enterprise s wishes to happen.
I will miss my morning coffee and paper. I guess I should just cancel my paper. It seems to me that the subscription price should go down if there is no delivery and no newsprint paper being used 3 days a week. I am only assuming there will be more people losing their jobs beside the delivery people. So sorry to see this happening. I will give it a couple of months before I make my decision to cancel.
This morning I started down our 600ft driveway to get the paper, I was on auto pilot. I greeted our horses and thought to myself, time to find Hasso Hering’s blog!