It has to be on time, and on target.

That's an artilleryman's phrase, but it's true of a lot of things. 

Including newspapers.

When the local paper closed its internal press and moved to contract in a city 150 miles away, it promised that this would rarely disrupt delivery.

That hasn't been true this year.

Indeed, it's been absent a lot, and for consecutive days.

You can read the on line version, some would point out, if you are a subscriber, but this isn't really true.  Not all of the content is actually capable of being viewed in that fashion.  I'm not sure why, but it appears be related to what's provided by a wire service or a syndication for a column.  The thing is, that's often what you might really want to read.

Indeed, I'm not confident that it's limited even to that.  It seems a bit broader in actuality.

Given all of that, I've given up expecting the paper to arrive early enough to be read on snowy days, and indeed, I've gotten used to not reading it at all.  Yesterday, for example, I didn't get the Sunday paper, something I normally look forward to reading, and ended up reading it this morning, with my Monday paper.

The paper has gotten expensive to subscribe to.  I understand it faces challenges, but in an electronic age a paper that doesn't show up for print subscribers and which can't be fully viewed for paying subscribers is increasing its challenges.  Maybe those challenges are insurmountable.  Not solving them will make them so.