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The Santa Ana-based Orange County Register, which recently
stopped contracting with rival Los Angeles Times for delivery
services, is offering $150 gift cards to staff members if they
deliver 500 to 600 papers, according to the memo sent on
Thursday, which was confirmed by the paper's top editor.
"The entire company -- all departments, including our newsroom
-- has been asked to help during what has clearly been a
difficult situation," editor Rob Curley said in an email to
Reuters. "It's strictly voluntary."
Employees have also been asked to help out in customer service,
personally telephoning subscribers who had not been able to
reach a live agent, according to the memo sent to the staff.
"It's unusual, yes," Curley told Reuters. "It's frustrating that
we're even in this position. But it's temporary. Bottom line:
all of us want our loyal readers to get their papers first thing
in the morning."
The Register's parent company, Freedom Communications Inc,
emerged from bankruptcy in 2010 and was purchased two years
later by Aaron Kushner, a greeting-card entrepreneur who
initially poured millions of dollars into the paper, doubling
the size of its reporting staff and vowing to rejuvenate the
sagging business of print journalism.
But the company has struggled, and dozens of reporters and
editors have been let go in recent months. A much-ballyhooed Los
Angeles edition was shut abruptly in September.
Earlier this month the Register reported that two investor
groups had told a judge in Delaware that the company was
insolvent and asked the court to appoint a receiver to oversee
the company's finances.
The newspaper reported that the request was denied, but it said
the investors pointed to problems with the delivery contract
with the Los Angeles Times as adding to its financial woes.
The Times, which has itself been hard-hit by troubles in the
newspaper business, has said Freedom owes it $2.5 million in
fees for delivering the paper.
Register publisher Rich Mirman on Friday said that most of the
paper's delivery routes are now covered, but that a few are
"affected by intermittent or late delivery."
Newspapers have been struggling for years amid the rise of
online communications.
(Reporting by Sharon Bernstein; Editing by Eric Beech)
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