While unforeseen delays did not affect all subscribers and readers of The Valley Times-News, many noticed the absence of a Saturday edition being delivered to mailboxes this weekend.

The delay was due, in part, to unpredictable and rare machine equipment breakdowns at the newspaper’s current printing home in Selma, Alabama. This caused the printing of the Aug. 25 edition to be extremely delayed, leading to late arrival at area post offices.

A newspaper press is a large and complicated piece of machinery that requires several people on-hand to run. One small problem can have cascading impacts. Sometimes the solution can be simple, like adding more paper or ink. Other times, it can be something much more complicated.

This, combined with the intricate scheduling needs of a printing site that handles printing for multiple newspapers daily, led to only a portion of the weekend edition papers being delivered on time, with West Point standing as the only location with confirmed deliveries.

Due to this unforeseen problem and delay in service, the online edition of the Saturday paper was made free to view over the weekend. Those subscribers that did not receive a Saturday newspaper should have received their paper on Monday.

As both a business and a public service, we certainly strive for better and are committed to ensuring problems like this do not arise. We strive to always provide the news in a timely fashion and recognize the importance of doing so.

Thankfully, problems of this nature are the exception, not the norm. Our printing facility works tirelessly to provide top-notch service to our readers and will continue to do so.

The need for reliable delivery is one we are committed to. We work hard every day to get the news out fast, without sacrificing accuracy.

To all those that did not receive a weekend paper on Saturday, we are deeply apologetic the news did not make it to your mailboxes. We will do everything in our power to ensure this remains the exception, not the norm.