Phone books vital to printers: letters to the editor
One reader sees red over suggestions that the White Pages are out of fashion. What’s your view?
Why would anybody who supports the printing industry go to such lengths to give directory printing such a negative profile? Perhaps the author of this article would like to see more work taken to Asia just to really kick more Australians in the guts while we are already hurting.
This printing supports many people financially so perhaps we should look at getting rid of the real problem here and have less authors trying to take the food out of people’s mouths and causing a stir in such rubbish articles like this.
I always thought Print 21 was in support of the industry but I was very much mistaken. Maybe you should get your camera out in some real areas where the phone books are used on a regular basis and not in some inner-city urban ghetto where most properties are rented. Some people have real homes and real needs for these books which help out other people who advertise in the directory.
Sounds like you would make a great writer for A Current Affair or Today Tonight where the facts don’t get in the way of a good story.
Concerned Australian
Oh no! Concerned Australian, I have been caught out; have you been stalking me in the streets of Redfern? Working for A Current Affair is my second, night-time job; it’s exhausting work, but someone has to keep the nation informed of these scandals. Ed
************
Before this descends into a pointless slanging match I'd like to try and turn it into an important and needed debate.
What Mitchell Jordan and, in his own peculiar way, the nameless 'Concerned Australian' (CA) have highlighted is the very essence of the problem with printing's image. CA asks: "Why would anybody who supports the printing industry go to such lengths to give directory printing such a negative profile?"
Perhaps, CA, the negative profile was visaged by Sensis and/or their distribution arm when they just dumped dozens of directories on the street and expected people to pick 'em up?
Jordan's account was valid journalism and referenced Patrick Howard's contra-view, on this same forum, which you obviously did not read. Sensis has sinced collected the dumped directories.
The problem is not the directory printing or the content but the way in which they are distributed. In recent months the 'negative profile' of printing was amplified, not by a Print21 writer, but by the printers themselves when PMP had to admit to 'issues' in their distribution system of major retail catalogues (now fixed). To recap, they were printing but not delivering all of what they promised, and some went straight to the recyclers. Where's the sense, or honesty in that?
Printers like you CA, assuming you are one, have no divine right to thrust massive over-runs of printed material down people's throats, this is not the answer to print's problems - simply printing more. Print less, print smarter, manage data and make more profit, like the real vanguard of responsible printing companies do – Finsbury Green, Focus Press, Opus Group and many others who I can't list here.
All of us need to be more responsible with energy and resources and printing in general has a great track record of achievements in this; unlike the internet which continues to waste unbelievable amounts of energy by being 'always on.' However, dumping piles of bulky printed matter on streets, hoping eager residents will rush and seize upon it is not smart 21st century-thinking.
As for Redfern being an 'inner city urban ghetto' – tautology aside and for your edification, Redfern's median house price in August 2009 is $717,500 with a 12-month growth trend of 7 per cent - two percentage points above the Sydney average. Houses there sell 20 per cent faster than the average so it is obviously an in-demand suburb, like many other inner city ones. I dine in Redfern now and then and it is a delightful place where one can feel quite safe compared to, say the drug-crazed, wife-beating, white-collar criminal harbouring and colourful racing identity sheltering Eastern Suburbs? I am of course hyperbolizing, but you get my point; I hope.
In a nutshell, printers everywhere have to face up to the fact that we live in times when print has to compete with multiple media choices and needs to be managed intelligently and tactfully. Mitchell Jordan has done printing a great service in highlighting our PR nightmare so stop this introverted 'oh mea miserum' hard-done-by printer nonsense and get out there and do something about it.
Two final points: Sensis already sends some directory work to Asia. And Print 21online has a nine-year track record of supporting our industry and has scored some major reversals of offshore print by campaigning – with effective and professional journalism. Now re-arrange these words into a well-known phrase or saying: "Carpet, truth, the, sweep, under, don't, the."
Yours etc.
Realistic Australian Printing Identity
(you tell me yours and I'll tell you mine)
It would be an interesting exercise to see what uptake there would be for an "opt out register" for directories, such as the "do not call" register which was established to stop unwanted telemarketing calls.
Given the current public appetite for being "green" the argument could be very compelling as to how many trees could be kept in the ground a bit longer with the production of directories matching the actual demand. It would be a gamble for Sensis, however if, as you suggest there is continued demand beyond using the directories to raise the height of monitors, then Sensis could be seen to be good environmental corporate citizens, without impacting the value of the entries. Sensis could even use this to their benefit by using their own web site as a registry to capture the details of online users of their service who do not have a need for a monitor stand.
I have recently come across an article where the Canadian Yellow Pages have done exactly what I was suggesting; have a look at http://www.ypg.com/delivery
Like it or not there is no future value in just printing to ensure that the distribution figures look good. The issue is one that should be addressed, as I point out, by Sensis in order to appeal to the community that are concerned about our environment, if they don't they will, together with the printer, to look like environmental vandals. The printer of the Australian directories already has a bit of a tainted history in printing more copies than were required.
Steve Smith
I live in a middle-class suburban street in Adelaide. We bring our delivered phone books inside to keep the neighbourhood tidy, not because we actually use them. I don’t think I have opened a hardcopy phone book for three years.
Peter Lawrance
Hyde Park Press