A heartfelt apology

We screwed up big time last week and owe quite a few readers a formal apology.

A “tub” of newspapers addressed to subscribers in northeastern Marion County wasn’t delivered to the Postal Service on time.

We mail through four different post offices to make sure all Marion County readers get their papers on Thursday. We initially thought one or two bundles of papers might have been sent to the wrong post office and, as a result, were forwarded for redelivery to the Postal Service’s black hole of newspaper routing in Kansas City.

Only after an outpouring of calls from readers continued Friday afternoon did we find that the “tub” accidentally had been left in a tucked away corner of our mail room.

We immediately took it to the post office, but the delay meant readers on Marion rural routes and in places like Lincolnville and Lost Springs probably did not get their papers until Saturday.

Rest assured we’re doing everything we can to prevent a similar problem in the future.

We spend thousands of dollars and thousands of hours making sure papers are mailed in very specific ways the Postal Service demands.

Every subscription address is separately validated via a computerized link to the Postal Service each week, and papers have to be separated out by individual letter carrier and placed in the specific order in which the carrier delivers mail on his or her route.

We have enough trouble with carriers and sorters misrouting or ignoring papers that we try to be perfect, even though no one ever can be.

We understand from a couple of readers who checked that at least one postal employee knew the “tub” hadn’t been delivered. We know it’s not postal workers’ job to detect our mistakes, but we had hoped that out of a sense of community someone might have, as several helpful postal employees have in the past.

The one good thing that came out of all of this was how devoted to reading the paper some of our readers are. We offered to give a copy to anyone who dropped by our office, but one reader worried that she wouldn’t be able to get to town for a week or more. She called back later to tell us that a neighbor had volunteered to give her the neighbor’s paper at church Sunday.

Sad as we are about messing up, we’re proud of how our mistake helped bring to light such community spirit and devotion to reading the paper.

— ERIC MEYER