Price Increases from Flint Group’s Day and Varn Businesses in North America
Price Increases from Flint Group’s Day and Varn Businesses in North America Flint Group’s Day and Varn businesses in North America are announcing price increases in blankets and chemical products. The increases are “to alleviate rapid and sustained increases in raw materials and logistics costs,” says a release from Flint Group.
The increases will be active for all blankets, bars, chemicals and consumable products sold in the U.S. and Canada and will be effective March 1 or by contract. Flint Group’s local sales representatives will be in contact with customers to discuss how this price increase will impact each business, says the release.
Facebook to Pump $1 billion into News Industry
Facebook says it will invest $1 billion in the news industry in the next three years. The pledge to pump the money into the industry came in a Feb. 24 blog post from Nick Clegg, VP of Global Affairs. The pledge comes after a kerfuffle with Australia in which Facebook stopped the sharing of news on its service in Australia. That spat has now been resolved and Australia has passed a news media bargaining code. In October 2020, Google said in a blog post that it was investing $1 billion in the news industry.
Australia Passes News Media Bargaining Code
The Australian Parliament on Feb. 25 voted to pass the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) news media bargaining code, which requires the dominant tech platforms to negotiate with and compensate news publishers in Australia for use of their content online. The News Media Alliance has a reaction here.
Both Facebook and Google have been making deals with Australian publishers, The Drum and others reported. Starting Feb. 17, Facebook had put a blockade on sharing news on its platform in Australia in response to the bargaining code, but went back on its move the next week.
Legacy Buys Adpay from Ancestry
Ancestry has sold subsidiary Adpay to Legacy.com, the companies announced Feb 18. Adpay is best known for its Memoriams platform, which enables funeral homes to publish obituaries in newspapers nationwide. Memoriams will complement Legacy.com’s iPublish Media Solutions, which it acquired in late 2019, says a press release on the buy.
“We are grateful for Ancestry’s stewardship of the Adpay business,” said Stopher Bartol, Legacy.com’s founder and CEO. “And we are thrilled to partner with the Adpay team to build on our shared mission of helping funeral homes and consumers publish obituaries in local newspapers everywhere, in every format.” Legacy is headquartered in Chicago. Adpay is based near Denver.
Move to Unionize Newsrooms in Austin, California
The NewsGuild-CWA has reported some recent moves to unionize. On Feb. 24, journalists at the Austin American-Statesman voted 36-12 in favor of forming the Austin NewsGuild, the NewsGuild says.
Journalists at the Southern California News Group announced plans to unionize at 11 daily newspapers and more than a dozen weekly publications across four counties: Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside and San Bernardino counties, the NewsGuild says. The SCNG is owned by Alden Global Capital’s MediaNews Group. In other union news, The Toledo News Guild, which represents journalists employed at The Blade, filed a lawsuit based on union claims management was insisting on unsafe bargaining practices during the coronavirus pandemic, WTOL reports.
SCA Closes its Last Publication Paper Machine
On Feb. 25, Sweden’s SCA permanently closed paper machine LWC4 at Ortviken paper mill. With this, SCA’s production of publication paper has come to an end. Publication paper production started at Ortviken in the year 1958 with production of newsprint. Ortviken has grown as a producer of newsprint and then coated publication paper for magazines and commercial print. Ortviken was one of the world’s largest mills for publication paper production.
SCA is now investing at Ortviken in the production of chemically pre-treated thermo-mechanical pulp, CTMP. At the same time the company Renewcell is building a production line for recycling of textile fiber on the site, says SCA.
More News
- The Auburn Plainsman, Auburn University’s student paper, will no longer print a weekly edition but will continue online.
- Q.I. Press Controls – Engineering Automation Electronics (QIPC-EAE) was tapped to provide a new Performance Package to Roman printshop Societa Tipografico Editrice Capitolina, QIPC-EAE announced.
- Online video platform SendtoNews Video says that digital video content from ITN, a U.K.-based television production company, is now available to STN’s 1,800 publishers within North America.
- Sweden’s Bonnier News Local, part of Bonnier News, has opted to use MWM Publishing Calendar to manage and control formats and logistics for titles and inserts.
- Swiss private media company Tamedia is working with MWM and opted to install Print 365 modules.
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