Reichley Column: Can't stop the free-paper madness

Sunday morning I’m getting the paper from the driveway, and my wife says “there’s another paper by the mailbox.” I told her that was just the Washington Examiner, and I was leaving it there in the hope
they would see it and realize I wasn’t interested in the paper.

“Won’t help,” says my wife; it’s already been tried and failed. I think about the piles of papers I’ve seen while walking around my neighborhood and know she’s right. I say I’ll have to call and ask them to
stop delivering the unwanted paper. “That won’t work either,” my wife replies.

I’m thinking my wife has put a lot more thought into this than I would have expected. But she explains a neighbor has already been through this process. At first I was incredulous — how hard could it be
to stop a paper? Stepping over the pile of wet papers on the porch, still in their bags (which I believe are designed to collect and trap moisture inside, rather than keep it out), I wondered how we got to this
point. I have to pay for papers I read, but I can’t stop a free paper I don’t want to read?

Some readers at this point may be wondering — isn’t Reichley a crazed right-wing columnist, and isn’t the Examiner just the paper for crazed right-wingers? Frankly, I wouldn’t know, because I don’t read
it. However, this isn’t about newspaper content. There are many people out there who read the Examiner, and I’ve heard it’s an informative paper with good writers.

When we first started getting the paper, I thought it was a mistake, since I hadn’t ordered it. Then I figured it was a marketing ploy — they’d get me hooked on the paper, and then they’d ask me to
subscribe. Or worse, that is was a scam where they’d just send me a bill. Meanwhile, when the paper showed up, I’d remove it from the plastic bag, and put both the paper and the bag into their
respective recycling piles.

But this is not a small paper, and my newspaper pile would be falling over in no time. So I launched my campaign of passive resistance, steadfastly refusing to pick up the paper (OK, maybe this isn’t as
hard as it sounds.) However, soon it was clear I’d have trouble getting my car out of the driveway with papers piled up (OK, I really couldn’t let papers pile up in my driveway, it just doesn’t look nice).

So Sunday, I went online to see how to stop the madness. It turns out this paper delivery problem is a big deal, with lawsuits, a Web site (StopTheExaminer) and a movement aimed at stopping the
indiscriminate delivery of free newspapers. The City of Alexandria recently passed a law to force companies to stop delivering papers if homeowners ask, kind of like the “do not call” phone registry.

It turns out the Examiner does have a process to stop delivery, which I just used. However, my online research indicates this is not always effective in actually stopping the paper. Apparently there is
some level of turnover in the delivery business, and it’s easier for the new guy to just throw a paper in every driveway. In some neighborhoods, people put signs in their lawns saying “No Examiner” — but
that’s hardly a good fix if you are worried about the look of your community.

I’m not against free things (if they aren’t paid for by my taxes), but there are problems with free delivery of papers without subscriptions. First, of course, is the unsightly littering of unwanted papers
scattered around a neighborhood. And without a relationship with the company, there’s no easy way to suspend delivery, which means the paper piles up if people are on vacation, making it easy for
robbers to identify houses that aren’t occupied. It’s easy to spot the abandoned houses.

Even people who support the free paper industry are concerned about the negative publicity of a company which won’t stop delivering papers to houses where they aren’t read. The fear is that local
governments will step in and pass restrictive regulations which will make it harder to make money with free papers.

Hopefully, we won’t get to that point here. If enough people who don’t want the paper use the Web site to cancel delivery (www.examiner.com/delivery/cancel), maybe the process will work, our
communities will be cleaner, and we won’t need government to get involved.

Charles Reichley has been a Prince William County resident since 1981. He can be reached at: criticallythinking@msn.com.