San Francisco Chronicle

I’ve been a subscriber for a number of years now. I’ve gotten other local and other county papers in the past, the Chronicle is the best. I like the format & visual layout of the paper. Us older folks (me 63) still likes to turn our own pages. So you may be surprised that I’m considering canceling my subscription. It seems that the news print is dying because the delivery service is inconsistent. Sometimes it doesn’t show. Sometimes it’s wet.
I’ve talked with my delivery supervisor several times (if you count auto/​operators) but no real changes. I spoke to the field delivery guy once who returned my complaint with his own in that he only gets 15 cents a copy to deliver and it doesn’t even cover his gas.
So I’ve added a little more to the tip column but still service stays the same.
My point is this; if the Chronicle respected its product enough, they’d pay a living wage to have it delivered and keep us old guys happy. Simple. Respect your employees, clients & self.

Worst home delivery imaginable. I have made 4 phone calls just this morning. Still no paper and now their customer service office is closed. I have to call every Sunday to get a paper delivered and sometimes see it arrives and sometimes it doesn’t. I will cancel my subscription tomorrow.

A kid came to my door to ask for donations… Told me it was for this program for low income families. anyways I would have been happy to just donate the money to that kid. Unknowingly I also subscribed to the SFC with a receipt given to me. I told him I did not want it, but he gave me it anyways and said it was FREE. Ok so a week later the newspaper deliveries began and I received a newspaper. About a month later, a bill came to me also for ~$ 23 and I was very much confused. I made a phone call and the agent sounded like she hated her job or something lol. I explained to her about the subscription being free and she understood me and the situation and cancelled the charges. I also I requested to cancel the subscription early in case I forget and they charge me for another subscription. After canceling, I am still being billed for $ 1.51 WTH. I thought this was FREE. so I called again and another agent picked up (also sounded like she hated her job) erased that balance for me and told me I would not be billed anymore. A month later a bill was sent to my home. smh i’m disappointed and frustrated. I would not be able to pay anyways as i’m under 18 yrs of age with no form of payment.
DO NOT MAKE THE SAME MISTAKE AS I DID AND DONATE MONEY TO KIDS WHO COME TO YOUR DOOR WITH A SFC SUBSCRIPTION!!! ITS A HEADACHE AND THE COMPANY IS ALSO.

This is for my father in law, who does not use technology. But wanted to have his opinion heard. Papa stated he lives in castro valley and has a 7 day subscription. Papa loves the paper. Loves the articles and the format over all other local news sources. He is angry with his delivery. And he has had several missed days of paper, including sundays. Papa does not have or use a computer or smartphone. This is besides television, his only means of comminucation. He feels as if the delivery should be more prompt and on time. He called to find out about the delivery, and asked for the call center, or manager at the paper to call him, to possibly just have delivery guy call him to understand why he pays for 7 day service when he gets a paper only 5 days a week, on random days. Poor delivery and poor customer service for two years. Has asked for a call from the paper, a manager, anyone, with no call back. Just wanted to see if they can have a different delivery driver or someone else that just doesnt deliver on days that they want, but everyday. Sorry for the rant. Hopefully this will get read. Thank you.

I’ve been subscribing to the SF chronicle FIR OVER 35 years either under my name or my wife’s name in San Francisco or in the east bay and never has there been any major problem with home delivery until 2016. This is the year they announced they were taking over home delivery and the service has been terrible. For exams this week the paper hasn’t been delivered or been delivered very late. (After 7). In the past its was always delivered between 5 and 5:30. Now sometimes not at all. This isn’t what I’ve paid for. Before the Chron took over home delivery from independent contractors there was hardly and trouble. Now delivery is consistently terrible. They are in danger of losing a customer.

I love the Chronicle and I will miss it. I will not miss the ulcers I am getting because the paper isn’t ever consistently delivered. Over the last week, I have received one Wall Street Journal given to me instead of the Chronicle, and two complete misses, which is an example of months of poor delivery service. The customer service is useless. I can’t get a call back from the supervisory of deliveries, and off shore people telling me they understand isn’t working. I’m sorry our relationship will end, but spending what we do monthly for this paper and not receiving it isn’ acceptable.

We are one of the last bastions of home delivery. Love a paper. Our troubles are with the delivery person and the NON-​RESPONSIVE attitude of the Chronicle. We have late papers at least 5 days a week. FIVE OUT OF SEVEN. An hour late. Jerry at the Chronicle — 415−777−8051 is very nice, feels bad for us, says he’ll try hard to get the delivery person there an hour or so earlier, when it’s due (by 6:30). Now it has escalated to a confrontation with the delivery person. Jerry was very nice, feels bad for us, says he’ll try hard. yada yada yada.

I like the content of the Chronicle and we are LOOONG time subscribers but the delivery service has gotten worse and worse. Many people in our neighborhood are reporting no delivery for days and getting through on their phone line is impossible. Can’t believe this is the major newspaper in the Bay Area. Meanwhile, our West County Times arrives faithfully every morning and their content is fine.

I made a horrible mistake of subscribing to this newspaper because I felt sorry for the kid who came to my door to sell it. I have moved from SF area back to Southern California over six months ago, and I am STILL getting calls from the Chronicle asking me to resubscribe. Every single time they call me, I tell them that I no longer live in the area, and they tell me that they will take a note of it, only to call me again several days later.
STOP HARASSING ME. I DON’T WANT YOUR SERVICES!

It’s unfortunate when you try to subscribe to the paper only to receive nothing and not receive help from customer service. It’s been over 7 weeks and no amount of pleading with customer service has made an actual newspaper arrive for the subscription for which I have already paid.

What is up with the Chron? As other people posted, they only deliver the paper when they are in the mood. They missed the delivery today of my Sunday paper. Waited until 9am, called customer service and they said they would have one delivered immediately…3pm, still no paper. This happens all the time. Why can’t you get this done, first time, every time? What a sack of bullpucky.

I appreciate the overall style & content of the chronicle.
The online layout is rich in content, with color-​pics headlining each story,
The menu & type-​face on the navigation aren’t intuitive & bit eye-​wearying.
The current content is consistent with the ‘The Chronicle’ of the past, while the editorials often wander in different political directions (IMHO).
I think some of the lower Unilocal scores have valid points, but overall the newspaper
is entertaining & thought-​provoking to me.

Before I start with my review there is a nagging question on my mind.
Is Meg O. real or just a robot that pulls responses from a list?
I wonder…
Late again. Sunday Paper arrived at 8:57am this morning.
We would really like to have to opportunity to read it over a cup of coffee, but 9:00AM is too late in the day.
At least it came this week. Last time it didn’t come (4 weeks ago) SFC response was to deliver the SUNDAY paper to me on WEDNESDAY. Missed deliveries happen about once a month. SFC never credits the account. I emailed Juliette, but never heard anything.
If SFC only delivers 75% of the time AND does not credit the account, you do the math.
Let me go ahead an post what I expect to hear from Meg the robot:
Hi Mark,
Apologies for the delivery inconvenience. Is there anyway we can help you out? Please connect with Juliette Mitchell, our head of customer service. She can assist you with any questions/​concerns regarding delivery or customer service. Her email is
. You can also talk with a customer service team supervisor via phone at (800) 310‑2455.
Let us know if there’s anything else we can assist you with.
Meg and Juliette, all I’m asking is to get the paper on a regular basis and earlier in the morning.

I wish that my hometown newspaper had a well-​functioning website. I TRY to read it every single day, but the insane load time is off the charts, I can’t scroll without freezing up the article I’m attempting to read. For whatever reason, just trying to scroll down a page is nearly impossible.
Some of the content is of interest to me, but it’s easier to get the headline from sfgate, and then look up the story elsewhere. So sad that this had become my SOP. I really do want local news. I just can’t get it from sfgate’s horribly frustrating site.
When I look at HuffPo or other news sites, they function perfectly fine and they have more content than sfgate. I don’t get it.

Critic Robert Hurwitt’s review of the Berkley Rep production of House of Cards was so enthusiastic that we bought tickets only to be disappointed. Won’t spend $ 62 a tickets based on his reviews again! Here’s the review i posted on Unilocal:
Spent $ 62 a ticket last night to sit in seats that are too small for people taller than 5’10. The seats in row K are too narrow, almost as uncomfortable as economy on United Airlines.
Went to see House of Cards, based on rave reviews from SF Chron critic Robert Hurwitt and the great productions we have seen there in the past. The reviews are worthless, as we found out. Don’t be swayed by the Sf critic Robert
House of Cards has awesome set, terrific actors, and great stage direction. But our group found the play to be a formulaic mash up of cliches. Each scene was predictable, you knew what was coming next. A knock off of the book of Job. When three of the actors are announced sequentially as tragically killed, we almost started laughing. The another shoe drops: the dead daughter was molested as a child by her father. The author must have been raised watching Mexican soap operas. That was the group consensus.
But the acting and the production was first rate. The play isn’t worthy of such a fine cast or the Berkeley Rep.

It’s a sad fact that North Korea’s website for online news functions better than SFgate.
Considering that San Francisco is a major city, the SF Chronicle’s website is an absolute embarrassment. Banal content. Lists fluffed up in the form of slideshows. Worst of all, the site freezes my computer and iPad browser nearly every time.

First you dumb down your web page to a collection of repetitive photos that do not remotely resemble a newspaper. I could live with that, because I could still use the search functions to find my favorite columns.
Now you have removed Matier & Ross, Leah Garchik, Mick LaSalle, and just about everything that makes the paper local. Access requires a paid subscription now.
Well, I remember the last time you did this and you came crawling back when no one bought the electronic subscriptions.
There is no longer any reason to visit your web page.
Update: Meg O., please spare me your robotic response. I’m looking for the columns I mentioned above, plus all the others you removed from SFGate. If people need help finding them, then your web page needs to be fixed. And no, I don’t want a «free» trial that requires giving you a credit card number and signing up for a subscription that I have to cancel before the end of the trial if I don’t want to be charged. Not my idea of «free.»

I used to really like the Chronicle which was on par with the major US papers but then it became more and more cartoonish and devoid of substance. The new website redesign is truly horrible. It looks awful, is very slow and buggy, and has frozen my computer several time already. How can this happen to a newspaper in one of the most technologically sophisticated areas in the US? Why would it ever take such a drastic step for the worse when the old website was OK? Mind boggling.
To the Chronicle person responding to the negative posts: save your energy to fix the problem instead of writing apologies below all of the reviews.

Zero stars.
I remember when this City had 2 fine papers with great reporting, feature articles, and… delivery. Fast forward 20 years. A slim paper with mostly ads and few good articles.
In recent months, my Sunday home delivery is a game of «Is the paper here?» Several times, I’ve had no delivery, leaving the paper outside the gate on a busy street, driven over by cars, not re-​delivered, etc. And the drivers leave a little envelope, expecting an extra bonus for what? Nothing.
I’m going back old school and getting my own paper, one I know will be intact and available, because I physically brought it home myself.

I just wanted to mention that if you are a Kindle subscriber, I finally found out how to get a re-​send of a paper that did not download or was never sent. (no thanks to the Chron who never even responded to my request). I discovered it on my own while browsing Amazon Kindle. So if you find that you did not receive your daily Kindle version of the paper, just go to Amazon, then to «manage your devices», then click on «newspapers», then on SF Chronicle there will be a drop-​down menu that allows you to click on a paper that you did not receive. I tried it, it works, as I did not receive the paper of Sept. 10, 2014.
The Kindle version is cool, but not perfect. There is no comics page, no Jumble to work on, and no editorial cartoons. If they would add these, it would be awesome.