Does Printing = Endorsing?

Insourcing is a great source of revenue for in-plants. But what happens if your parent organization frowns upon one of your customers?

At Pittsburg State University (PSU), officials declared this week that the in-plant could no longer accept work from politicians, according to a report by KOAM-TV, in Pittsburg, Kansas. Officials worried that taking print work from politicians gave the impression the university was endorsing one candidate over another. (Never mind that all candidates were welcome to bring their work, and politicians paid the same price as other customers.)

Though the in-plant manager at PSU did not return IPG’s calls today, he was presumably not given a choice in the matter, since the KOAM report quoted only the school’s director of Public Relations. So we asked another in-plant manager for an opinion on whether printing someone’s job means you’re endorsing them.

“We consider ourselves custom manufacturers, and produce thousands of projects a year,” wrote Jennifer Bowers, director of Printing, Mailing and Postal Services at Florida State University, in an e-mail. “We certainly don’t consider the production process an endorsement of the content, authors(s), departments or agencies that request the service. If we get paid, and it’s legal to print, we’ll produce it.”

What’s more important to consider, she noted, is the loss of this revenue, which otherwise would have benefited the university.