"Every door [at the Waldorf] gets The Earth Times, the Wall Street Journal, the International Herald Tribune, USA Today and the Financial Times," said the company's Vice President, Mitchell Newman, during an interview on day two of the five-day conference. Throughout the conference, Newman supervised the publications' delivery to corporate luminaries, heads of state, diplomats, business gurus and assorted hangers-on in roughly 1,400 rooms--a laborious task temporarily added to his daily duties. Newman regularly oversees the distribution of 150,000 newspapers to low-income housing projects, major international corporations--and to entities at every level of prestige in between -throughout Manhattan, the Bronx and Westchester County. Yet, despite the ease with which Newman handles the variety of his responsibilities and the many stresses of his job, he insisted that the Forum posed a new challenge. "Security is very tight," he said, resting his head in his hands. At 10:30 AM he is still awake from the previous day's work. "It's hard to get through clearance," he said.

Newman explained that in order to be cleared to deliver papers to the Waldorf, his company's vans were stopped at a checkpoint a block away from the hotel on Madison Avenue. "First we had to drive about three miles an hour over what looked like a big doormat with lights on it," he said--a device which enabled security officers to examine the underside of the vehicle. Then, he continued, dogs entered and smelled the stacks of paper and "at least" three or four personnel with flashlights and mirrors inspected the cars' interiors. Finally, the vans were admitted on to the heavily policed Park Avenue and escorted to the Waldorf, where workers placed each bundle of newspapers on a security conveyor belt. "We had hundreds and hundreds [of bundles]," said Newman.

The Forum meetings also disabled the easy delivery of papers to other venues inside the "gridlock"--the blocks of midtown Manhattan closed off to traffic between January 31 and February 4. According to Newman, the Forum came to town during 'Restaurant Week' in which multiple high-end restaurants have $20.02 lunch specials to boost business for 2002. Many food establishments wanted copies of the Financial Times, which had an extensive list of participants, he said. "There are lots of restaurants in the closed-off area," added Newman, and "We have to get there really early to wait in line and go through the security process." Ironically, Mitchell's News Service, which thrives on door-to-door delivery, actually began as a general store where customers used to have to come to purchase newspapers. The 55-year-old family business started when Newman's father Alfred--"not the MAD magazine character," Newman mused--opened a store on the corner of 1st Avenue and 50th Street in Manhattan. Renowned composer Irving Berlin, one of the store's "good customers," reportedly bought eight different papers a day and, according to Newman, "asked to have someone bring them to [his apartment] around the corner on Beekman Place. From there we started as a home delivery business," Newman said.

In 1979, the Financial Times contacted Mitchell when Times subscribers were receiving "Monday's paper on Wednesday or Thursday" due to the sluggish pace of regular mail. "Normally, we'd buy newspapers from the publisher and re-sell them," Newman said, explaining that the publisher pays them a delivery fee per newspaper copy. The company now maintains relationships with hundreds of different publications such as Variety, Ad Week and the Wall Street Journal.

The company's clientèle is equally diverse. "Whether it's an 85 year-old woman who wants the Sunday Daily News to read her horoscope, or a large corporation that needs to make a big business decision, we make it happen," Newman said. The company has even branched into bulk beverage and pet food delivery.

Major corporate clients range from news networks to radio stations, and all have different needs. To CNN, for example, "we make four newspaper deliveries starting at midnight," Newman said, adding that the network receives "hundreds" of different publications. ABC, meanwhile, is closely watching Fidel Castro, and "must get the Miami Herald," which includes comprehensive Castro coverage, as early as possible. And to appease morning radio personalities like Don Imus and Howard Stern, deliverymen from Mitchell's News Service need to arrive promptly at 4:30 AM. Newman calls his involvement in the news distribution business "exciting." On his morning drives to work from his home in Marlboro, New Jersey, he said, he knows the radio hosts' news reports come from the papers his company delivered. "If you listen really closely, you can almost hear them turning pages," Newman said. "I take a lot of pride in that."

Commenting on how business has changed since the World Trade Center attacks, Newman said, "After Sept. 11, newspaper readership skyrocketed. Everybody wanted to understand what was going on." One incident in particular highlighted the way in which local community members rely on him. Newman received a call from Ms. Hogg, an elderly East Village customer who, in the past, called Newman repeatedly to complain that her paper was late, dirty or too far from the curb. This time, she called to thank him.

"When I opened my door on September 12," she cried, "I knew we would be OK." Newman admits that the conversation caused him to reflect upon his profession. "We're all about freedom and freedom of the press, and I helped that process a little bit," he said. At the Waldorf-Astoria, diplomats attended conferences on global freedom infused with five newspapers' worth of news. "In a small way, I have a role to play," Newman said.