Four days later, we’re back

If there was a lesson to be learned from this Christmas season, it’s that a daily newspaper should not wait four days between publications.

I enjoyed the extended four-day holiday myself, but returned today to find that a lot of people had called the office yesterday wondering why they hadn’t received their Monday edition of The Daily News. The reason was that because Christmas Day fell on a Friday,Boxing Day Saturday, and so on, and it made practical sense — largely for our staff’s statutory holidays — to resume publishing today rather than yesterday.

We provided notice of that last Thursday on the front page, but many readers missed it and, when the paper didn’t arrive on their doorstep yesterday morning, thought there might be a delivery problem.

The fact so many people called is a good thing in that it indicates they depend on their daily paper and miss it when it doesn’t show up. Four days is the longest period in my recollection that we’ve ever gone without publishing and I doubt we’ll do it again. And we’d be wise to print notice of any future holiday publishing schedules a little more prominently, as well.