Thursday, October 23, 2014

Postmaster General Wins Dubious Publishing Honor

In just two and a half years, Postmaster General Patrick Donahoe has gone from hero to villain in the eyes of a leading publishing-industry magazine.

Disruptor General
Folio: named the U.S. Postal Service’s CEO this week to its Folio: 100 list of the 100 most influential people in the magazine industry, in the “disruptor” category.

“Donahoe raised postal rates by 6 percent in December, making magazine delivery more expensive at a time publishers are carefully managing their print costs,” Folio: noted. Periodicals mail volume declined more than 6% in the first six months after the “exigent” rate increase was implemented.

Folio:’s slap at the PMG was a far cry from April 2012, when the magazine hailed Donahoe because “he has pledged to support the magazine industry.” He was awarded a place on that year's Folio: 40 list of the magazine industry’s “most innovative and distinguished professionals.”

Folio: quoted him back then as saying “You don’t hear me walking around saying we need an exigent price change — that will push you, bill presenters and standard mailers out of the mail.”

To be fair to Donahoe, almost everyone in 2012 thought Congress would have to do something to relieve the Postal Service’s financial burdens, after squeezing billions of dollars from the agency in the form of pension overpayments and prepaid retiree health benefits.

But in fact Congress has been unable to do anything more meaningful than name additional post offices, leaving Donahoe few options in his efforts to keep the agency solvent.

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3 comments:

Anonymous said...

They just found out what Postal Service employees have already known,that Doanahoe is a lying weasel who tell you what you want to hear then stab you in the back.

Anonymous said...

Donahoe needs to develop some backbone and quit sucking up to Congress. They are obviously not going to pass meaningful postal reform or take away the burden of prefunding retirees health benefits or give us back our pension overpayments without a fight. He needs to put on some boxing gloves and stand up for his employees.

Marc Zazeela said...

Pat Donohoe is stuck between a rock and a hard place. Dwindling mail volume is beyond his control. The things he would like to control, Congress won't let him.

There are so many other ways for USPS to grow revenue if only Congress would unshackle them and let them behave like real business instead of a government agency that gets NONE of its revenue from the taxpayers.