Now in the News: Hoarding Paper Could Become The New Normal As Supply Worries Political Mailers

September 9, 2022

Hoarding Paper Could Become The New Normal As Supply Worries Political Mailers

Mail political consultants jammed up by the ongoing paper shortage (and price increases) are resorting to stockpiling to ensure they can meet clients’ demands from now until Election Day. In fact, some say they saw the current crunch coming a long way off, and have the supplies they need banked to get through the cycle.

“Our firm saw this coming this spring and has stockpiled paper to ensure that our clients are covered. With the volume of work we do with our printing partners, our work moves to the front of the line,” said Dean Nielsen, CEO of CN4 Partners. “We believe that taking these kinds of steps to protect our clients separates us from other consultancies.” Nielsen added that his clients won’t be hit with a shock price increase as a result of their doomsday preparation. “We haven’t experienced any cost fluctuations, but will cross that bridge if and when it happens,” he noted.

Still, not every consultant is prepared to speak publicly about their strategy for riding out the ongoing shortage, which is likely to persist because of mill closures or bankruptcies and the costs of ingredients like titanium dioxide

White Paper Shows Google’s Ongoing Use And Abuse Of News Content

The News/Media Alliance published an extensive research paper, “How Google Abuses Its Position as a Market Dominant Platform to Strong-Arm News Publishers and Hurt Journalism,” in which countless news publishers were interviewed and detailed how Google has used and abused news content over the course of several years through wielding their dominant position to strong-arm news publishers into giving away their content, all while Google profits from it. New revelations include anticompetitive behavior among and between Google and Facebook to further cement their market dominance. Like most industries, news media outlets have made business decisions impacting revenue and the business landscape. Not all of those decisions have paid off. One such decision was made almost twenty years ago to allow news content to be used on search and social platforms when the value exchange was fair, and traffic produced revenue through advertising. However, today, that value exchange is nearly nonexistent. It has been reported that 65 percent of users stay within the walled gardens and do not click through. And when few do click through, the ad tech tax is imposed, where the platforms take up to 70 percent of every digital advertising dollar because they also dominate the ad tech ecosystem, which feeds off the data collected inside their products and across the web. There is no longer a fair exchange of value, and no one publisher alone can alter this dynamic. The White Paper outlines several ways in which Google uses news content to its advantage – and to news publishers’ detriment – across its products and services.

Ad Employment Sustains Slight Decline After Summer Boom

U.S. ad agency employment reached an all-time high in July, but ad jobs took a small fall in August

Employment in advertising, public relations and related services fell by 400 jobs in August, indicating the market slowing following strong gains earlier in the summer.

For the overall economy, U.S. employers added 315,000 jobs in August, taking employment to an all-time high, according to the monthly employment report from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

The unemployment rate rose to 3.7% from 3.5%, the first increase since January and the sharpest one-month uptick since early in the pandemic in spring 2020.

Paxton Media Buys Five Area Newspapers

A Paducah, Kentucky-based newspaper chain has acquired five papers in the Tri-state region, including the Cleveland Daily Banner and Cookeville Herald-Citizen in Southeast Tennessee, the Cartersville Daily Tribune News and the Chatsworth Times in north Georgia, and the Jasper Daily Mountain Eagle in Alabama.

The Paxton Media Group, a privately held newspaper company that was started in 1896, announced the purchase of the newspapers this week.

Paxton’s holdings include over 115 newspapers and a TV station, WPSD-TV in Paducah. The company was ranked as the fifth largest newspaper chain in the country in the number of newspapers it owns, according to a ranking by the Mendill Local News initiative.

The Cleveland Daily Banner, which was previously owned by Walls Newspaper Consultants, is one of the oldest newspapers in Tennessee. The newspaper published its first edition on May 1, 1854.