Vendors, orgs provide COVID-19 updates

Vendors and advocacy organizations serving the newspaper and print industries have released updates on their status during the COVID-19 crisis. Here are some of the updates that reflect moves across the industries.

• Facebook on March 30 announced an additional $100 million investment to support the news industry — $25 million in emergency grant funding for local news through the Facebook Journalism Project, and $75 million in additional marketing spend to move money over to news organizations around the world.

• The News Media Alliance and America’s Newspapers put out a joint letter on “the role the federal government can play in ensuring the survival of the vital services that local news publishers like you provide for our nation.” The letter is addressed to President Trump, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. Access it here.

 • The News Media Alliance has a running update on news publishers being deemed “essential” businesses as states announce public orders.

• In response to the COVID-19 outbreak, Rayonier Advanced Materials announced curtailed production at seven Canadian locations. Starting this week, the company will cease or reduce operations at all softwood sawmills located in Ontario and Quebec as well as halt production at the company’s newsprint plant in Kapuskasing, Ontario. These curtailments will last at least two weeks and may go longer. Existing sales orders will continue to be fulfilled from current inventory and reduced production at the Kapuskasing sawmill. All other facilities are expected to operate at normal levels.

• Fujifilm’s business units focused on the commercial, sign and display, packaging and industrial print segments remain committed to continuing support of these businesses, in accordance with government directives, said an update from Fujifilm.“We have implemented necessary steps to support our employees who can work from home and have instituted additional safety protections for those employees whose work must be performed on-site.”

• technotrans America (tta) says it’s conducting business normally regarding equipment sales, parts sales, equipment repair and hotline support. However, “our capacity to conduct field work has been reduced. We will try to minimize any disruption to our customer's schedules. We ask for your patience in this rapidly-developing situation,” said a note from tta.

 • A note to customers fromThe Siebold Company said, “To ensure the safety of our parts customers, we sanitize all parts and components prior to shipment. We suggest when you receive shipments from us, your receiving personnel use best practices to sanitize all incoming shipments including hand washing  before and after unpacking the shipment.  We have adopted this same procedure for all incoming deliveries received at our facilities.”

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