Costco Wholesale Corporation Reports September Sales Results

On July 28, Apple heiress Laurene Powell Jobs bought a majority stake in The Atlantic. It’s the latest media purchase by the billionaire class, a group that includes Amazon founder Jeff Bezos (the Washington Post), Boston Red Sox owner John Henry (the Boston Globe), billionaire Glen Taylor (the Minneapolis Star-Tribune) and casino magnate Sheldon Adelson (the Las Vegas Review-Journal). Some have praised this growing trend, arguing that wealthy individuals are journalism’s last, best hope. And there are notable cases of rich philanthropists, like Pierre Omidyar and Gerry Lenfest, making significant donations toward public service journalism.

The fast-paced nature of the digital media cycle (and subsequent marginalization of simple fact checking and copy editing) has raised legitimate questions about outlets placing expediency and traffic surges above taking the time to get things right—yesterday’s wave of premature reports about the death of singer Tom Petty was only the latest example. This phenomenon, coupled with rising paranoia among consumers and marketers around fake news and brand-safe environments, respectively, provides a unique opportunity for trusted and established media brands such as national magazines. At least, that’s the central message of the latest marketing campaign undertaken by the MPA—the Association of Magazine Media. Click Read More below for additional information.

The United States Postal Service reported new delivery performance metrics for the tenth week of the fiscal fourth quarter. During the reporting period, the average time for the Postal Service to deliver a mailpiece or package across the postal network was just 2.5 days. FY2022 fourth quarter service performance scores covering July 1 through Sept. 9 included: *First-Class Mail: 93.2 percent of First-Class Mail delivered on time against the USPS service standard, consistent with performance from the fiscal third quarter. *Marketing Mail: 94.6 percent of Marketing Mail delivered on time against the USPS service standard, consistent with performance from the fiscal third quarter. *Periodicals: 87.0 percent of Periodicals delivered on time against the USPS service standard, consistent with performance from the fiscal third quarter.