Days before Australian printers had got together for the SWUG conference in Hobart, there was WAN/Seven TV boss Kerry Stokes talking about printed newspapers as a ‘sunset’ industry with perhaps 15 years to go.

Was it the ‘elephant in the room’ at the Wrest Point venue?

Well, when Sandra Hetherington from paper maker Norske Skog explained ‘thinning’ and the 25-30-year process of growing the plantation radiata used in newsprint, nobody dared ask why they were still planting trees.

Oh, it’s for building houses, of course!



And on the subject of Hobart... can I mention the unbelievable inconvenience of flying Jetstar? Travelling back from SWUG to the relocated home of GXpress in the Sunshine Coast, you’re confronted with the farce of collecting your luggage, lugging it upstairs, and beginning the check-in process all over.

There’s the privilege of tugging your pull-along toys through the solied cattleyard that Melbourne’s Tullamarine has become, and killing time until the baggage counter opens

I’d flown from Maroochydore with Virgin, which was efficient, friendly and even characteristically amusing, but the flights didn’t work for my return,so I was stuck with the proscriptive and dictatorial Jetsar.

When I remonstrated over their inability to check luggage to my destination ‘ I was told that was how they kept costs so low – even that Virgin was a ‘premium’ airline. Which might be a sound argument if my Virgin flight han’t cost 20 per cent less than that of the Qantas subsidiary.

Instead of competing with Virgin, Jetstar seems intent on punishing you for not flying with its parent. Except that you can’t always travel Qantas (even if you wanted) to Maroochydore – and it seems, Hobart – other than in the sense that Qantas may take your money and put you on a Jetstar plane (as happened to the guy sitting next to me).

So, long may there be a competitive marketplace- in which I’ll fly Virgin whenever I can! Provided the “all grown up” environment of the new Virgin Australia doesn’t mean it plans to emulate the standards of its competitors, of course.



Or of course, take the GXpress mobile office on the road, as we did between PrintEx11 and an outdoor trade show for the sister magazine in the (tiny) MPC Media stable, Sportslink.

A good way to check out the efficiency of the technology on which we depend. One flaw was that the USB data modem my wife (and Sportslink editor) Maggie and I share, which decided to work only on her Mac and not mine.

I spent almost seven hours being bounced around Telstra ‘customer service’ departments on one day – culminating in a promise that a software specialist would contact me within 16 working hours – and another couple chasing the job ticket number I had been given to find out what was happening when that expired.

After a chase-up call elicited the information that someone would ring – they just couldn’t say when – I did actually get a call, eight days after my original one and three after a last desperate (but successful) attempt to get the thing going. The war of attrition nearly won... the wretched device saved from the bin for another day.

Despite its other attractions, I found courtesy and seating accommodation were in short supply at the sole PrintEx cafeteria, it seems. At one point I was raced off to a table by a newspaper industry vendor who then declined to share the remaining vacant seats. I hadn’t realised things were that desperate!

By contrast, hospitality at the Publish Asia event in Bangkok – some of it furnished by the state tourism authority – was a delight. One highlight was welcome party reached by riverboat from the conference hotel, and traditional Thai culture – with a contemporary twist – was also a feature of the Asia Media Awards entertainment.

Bangkok, and particularly ‘Bangkok Post’ editor-in-chief Pichai Chuensuksawadi, had worked and waited patiently for the return of the conference to the city, despite unrest and violence which made headlines last year, and left an intended venue gutted by fire.

Police were in attendance – especially when the prime minister came in for a briefing with Asian editors – but the conference was left in peace. An election was about to be announced, but the unrest has not gone away: Entertained by a colleague who lives in the city’s outer suburbs, I noted the are sight of a road almost devoid of traffic... explained by the presence of an illegal radio station and partial roadblock close by.

 

And while newspapers work on expanding their iPad exposure, a Melbourne firm is making a business from tablets using recycled print consumables.

Tanya Gordon of systems developed APS drew my attention to Haul in North Fitzroy, which makes iPad and Mac Sleeves from recycled press blankets, including some from the Herald & Weekly Times’ Westgate print site.

“He’s a great guy and the dog in the store is really cute, too,” she says.