Outside news racks for The Burbank Leader have been disappearing from the city streets for some time. I have been critical of that fact in the past. Now the word from the editor, Dan Evans, is that all the Burbank Leader news racks will be history soon. Bad news. Terrible idea. The reason, Evans says, it’s “theft.”
In a recent column about changes to the Leader and the Glendale News-Press, editor, Dan Evans, explained it this way: “Have you wondered why you were unable to grab a copy of the paper, even in the early morning hours? Well, turns out a rogue group of recyclers would follow around our delivery truck and grab the papers shortly after they were put in the box. My guess is this was being done for recycling purposes, though the money gained seems hardly worth the effort. So, the logical thing to do is to move the papers inside. That way, they’re less likely to be kidnapped and more likely to be read.”
Hmm, I think the logical thing to do would be to alert the Burbank PD to track down the kidnappers and put a stop to the alleged theft. You know, I saw a clerk scoop up some Leader newspapers from an outside rack and cart them inside a store. She told me they couldn’t get the Leader folks to deliver the papers to the store and customers kept asking for them.
I have heard complaints from many residents that the Leader is incredibly difficult to find in Burbank. That’s not the case for L.A. Weekly, The Tolucan, The Burbank Times, or even the relatively new, Burbank Independent. Hard to believe, the Leader is the home town newspaper.
So thumbs down on the Leader for dumping the outside news racks. Yeah, you can always read the Leader online, however, a lot of residents in the Media City like picking up the hard copy. More from Evans on that and other changes here.
