The Indiana Publisher

Jerry Simpkins Editor & Publisher A lot has changed in the printing industry over the past 35 years and a lot has stayed the same. We've had circulation ups and downs, advertising certainly isn't what it once was and newspaper ownership has changed dramati- cally. But our world isn't all gloom and doom. There are many bright spots and cause for celebration. Over the years, we've seen advancements in technology throughout our industry. For those of you who remember the pre-pagination days and can draw a parallel to where we are today, you'll have to agree we've come quite a long way. Long gone are the days of trimming galleys, marking- up ads and cutting apart small pieces to assemble them into an advertisement like a jigsaw puzzle. Our process for making plates has simplified and quality has grown to new levels from the days of raw metal needing to be coated in-house and burning plates on a vacuum board through a thin sheet of film, to the current point of laser imaged readymade plates being locked up on press without processing. Yes, we've come a long way, and as we've advanced, we've continued to spend a sizeable amount of time and money on consumables. I go back a bit in our industry. I clearly remember 35 years ago speaking with vendor after vendor negotiating price, discussing delivery costs, product availability and spending an absorbent amount of time meeting in my office with an endless line of salespeople. I remember the feeling of accom- plishment when I'd come across a great deal and the disappointment when a vendor would raise a price and there really wasn't a lot I could do about it if I needed the product. But all in all, time aside, I enjoyed having the ability to work closely with vendors and negotiate pricing that I "thought" might just be better than the shop down the street was paying I was happy to be left alone to do my job and thought I was doing it excellently, then came the word from the head office that we would be using PAGE Coopera- tive to negotiate pricing with vendors and our purchases would go through them and them alone. No more face to face negotiating with vendors? This just couldn't be right. I just couldn't understand what the advantage could be to buying through a cooperative. Then again no "cooperatives" existed for consumable purchases back then, and of course, we didn't yet understand any benefit in having one. To get to my point: I was stuck in my ways, resistant to change and in all honesty, quite ignorant at that stage of my brief career in newspapers. The bigger problem was that most of my co-workers and connections throughout the industry seemed to be in the same boat. I remember quite a bit of resistance to cooperative buying when PAGE first came into our industry, but like many things in life it takes awhile to get over new things, take a closer look at the value of change, and realize there are a lot really smart individuals who know quite a bit more than I ever could about purchasing. In 1983, one of those smart individuals was Pete Eyerly III. He was publisher of the Press- Enterprise, an independent newspaper in Bloomsburg, Pa. One day, Eyerly received an ink bill that was mistakenly sent to the wrong newspaper. He discovered that the bill was marked with a 15 percent discount that the same supplier was not offering to the Press-Enterprise. Needless to say, he was not pleased. He began to wonder just how many other suppliers were offering others discounts he wasn't privy to and how many other independent newspapers were in similar situations. Eyerly contacted a friend and associate, Chuck Berky, a former independent publisher, and Joe Smyth of Independent Newspapers to see if they might be interested in helping create a purchasing cooperative for independent newspapers across the country. These are the events that led to the creation of PAGE ("Publishers Associated to Gain Economy")— smart people who sure knew what our industry needed at the time a lot better than I did. On this day, PAGE set into motion a plan designed to assist with cost leveling between independently-owned newspapers and publically-held properties. It's a plan that has worked well over the past 35 years and brought tremendous benefits to our industry through volume purchases. Fast forward to 2019 and the ownership changes that have taken place and continue to occur in our industry. A number of independent newspapers have traded hands, selling to larger group ownership or shutting down production operations all together, while others have closed. Obviously the fewer independent newspapers doing business with PAGE have less bargaining power they may have with vendors, so it was time for a change in the bylaws of PAGE that not only strengthens its position but also a change that I believe will benefit us all. Stronger Together In June, PAGE chief executive officer Gary Blakeley and Press- Enterprise publisher and PAGE board chair Brandon Eyerly issued a press release announcing that publicly-held newspapers, newspaper groups and commercial printers would be eligible to join the cooperative. Prior to the current change in this bylaw whenever an independently-owned newspaper was acquired by a publically-traded company, the newspaper would no longer qualify for PAGE member- ship. Obviously, that diminished the aggregate spend of PAGE. When asked why this change had to happen, Blakeley and Eyerly said "looking forward, we can say that we see no good reason why a newspaper should lose the leverage of PAGE's spend power simply because of ownership. Since the founding of PAGE in 1984, the landscape has changed." I could not agree more with this approach. Opening member- ship to a much larger group and including commercial printers will certainly add strength to the buying power. Blakeley, who started with PAGE a short time ago, has been actively involved with purchasing since his days at Freedom Communications. "An obvious and basic concept for purchasing is the more spend power that you have, the better your negotiation position be- comes," he said. To read the whole story, visit http://bit.ly/2kUTJKy. PAGE Cooperative opens up membership to include publicly- held newspapers, newspaper groups and commercial printers September 2019 Page 14

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