Newsletter Represents No-Spin Zone

Add Mazer Corp. of Dayton, OH, to the list of companies that are quietly vanishing. The book manufacturer hopes to forge a deal that will bring another owner on board, but as of Dec. 30, its doors were locked and 130 people left jobless, according to several accounts.

We recently received an irate e-mail from a sales associate with a printer who accused us of running negative news items about his company in PI Weekly. Sadly, the news that reaches us, either through press release, newspaper article or other source, is probably 75 percent negative these days. Closings and layoffs. Indeed, we probably miss out on a fair amount of work stoppages that escape the attention of newspapers, press releases and the like. Large printers don't want to trumpet layoffs, and publicly-traded companies try to hide the writeoffs 10 pages into their quarterly financials.

While it would be ridiculous to sugarcoat the nation's financial crisis, that's not to say we don't look to accentuate the positive now and then. And it's incumbent on you, the reader, to pass along positive news items that celebrate the spirit of our industry and the men and women driving it. But we would be remiss in not flagging down the news briefs that have become frustratingly common these days.

One of my old editors used to joke, "Remember, it's always darkest before ... going totally black." The holidays are over and it's time to get back to work. Here's hoping it picks up on all ends.