Every week, this newsletter aims to bring you the latest developments, comments and analysis of the newspaper industry, as well as information on media and publishing in general.  Whenever possible we try to bring you the good news as well as the bad.  Unfortunately, it’s been harder and harder lately to find any good news.  Still, we think it’s important to bring you all of the “death of the newspaper industry” stories so that our readership remains informed about how the world views newspapers and other print products. 

Although you may read several articles in each newsletter that are slanted against newspapers it does not mean that AAIND thinks the newspaper industry is on the way out.  Certainly there are going to be changes but with change comes opportunity.

Doing a quick search of the internet on “television and radio” the following headline came up:

“Will Television in Color Make Present Radio Sets Obsolete?--Should Buyers Wait for Receivers That Will Reproduce Moving Images True to Nature?”

That headline is from The New York Times, July 14, 1929.

The point is, rarely, if ever, has one medium ever replaced another.  The leaders of the industry must find the right way to utilize the medium so as to serve consumers and advertisers, perhaps giving up market share along the way, but the industry survives and eventually thrives again.  AAIND is confident newspapers will eventually find their “equilibrium” and the industry is going to need talented distributors and executives to lead the way.

AAIND wants to be a part of that change.  We bring you this newsletter every week, an effort that we put a lot of resources into.  We present an informative and productive annual conference where leading distributors and circulation executives gather to hash out issues like scan based trading, independent contractor status and how to improve efficiencies when the publisher is calling for more and more cuts.  We work behind the scenes throughout the year as well on these and many other issues.

We are proud to have among our membership the leaders in the industry, many of whom have supported the organization year in and year out.  If you are planning on continuing your membership this year or supporting us for the first time, we ask that you submit your dues as soon as possible.  If you are a regular member requests for dues payments went out right before the holiday crunch and our letter may have been overlooked.

Although we are increasing dues rates for 2009, we want to give everyone one last chance to pay at the 2008 level until January 31.  Help support AAIND by making your payment today.  2008 members can renew membership by logging into our website www.aaind.org.  For most of you, your login will be your email address and your password is your last name, unless you have changed it previously.  We do suggest that you at least log in to change your password for security purposes, although we do not store any financial or personal information on our site.  If you have trouble logging in you can use the ‘forgot password” function or you can email us at info@aaind.org and we can reset it for you.

If you would like to join AAIND for the first time please go to http://www.aaind.org/joinnow.php and fill out the online registration form.

Help keep AAIND a viable industry resource and make your dues pledge today.