The Late Chronicle

Starting in early 2018, The Morning Call will be printed in Jersey City, N.J.. Although publisher Robert York states that plans are being made to assure quality of delivery, he cannot change the physics of the 90 minutes it takes to get the paper from A to B. In order to maintain their morning distribution schedule, the deadline for reporters will have to be 90 minutes earlier, or about 8:30. This change will preclude hardcopy subscribers from reading about last night's council meetings, and other evening activities. Most of the suburban meetings are covered by stringers, if at all, and they normally don't publish until a day later anyway. While the digital paper will be able to maintain its current schedule, there will be far greater time lag between it and the hard copy version,  in regard to local news.

As a disclosure, this blog is now produced from Panama City, Panama.

file photo from The Morning Call

ADDENDUM: I received the following message from The Morning Call;

 #1) While it is 90 minutes to Allentown from Jersey City, it’s a fair bit shorter to our distribution centers in Phillipsburg, Bethlehem and others supporting eastern region of our coverage area. It makes no sense for us to bring the morning papers to Allentown and then traverse the same route back to those locations so we will be transporting directly. Distribution of the morning paper is not as simple as adding 90 minutes to the equation. DC drop off times and a number of other factors including the size of routes are being rebuilt to ensure delivery next year is the same as today. #3) On several days of the week, the paper currently has one of the latest close times (when the paper goes to press) of any on the east coast. Next year once these changes take place, late council meetings, high school sports including football and basketball scores and stories will still be in the next morning’s paper. We may even sneak in a score from a Saturday night Penn State game – something we can’t do now.