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Tired of huffing dead media around for pennies, the US Postal Service has decided that they are going to increase magazine postal rates by 8 percent, according to a story on Media Post. And the old media titans are not happy.

In response magazine publishers and industry organizations, including Conde Nast, Time Inc., Bonnier Corp., American Business Media, the Magazine Publishers of America and the Direct Marketing Association, have joined forces to create the Affordable Mail Alliance, which describes itself as “an unprecedented coalition of postal customers,” petitioning the PRC to block the rate increase.

What is the first thing this new organization does? They’re blaming the mail carriers saying that if the Postal Service wants to save money they should cut employee pay rather than increase rates.

For example, the AMA noted that the wages of postal workers are higher than comparable positions in the private sector.

How’s that for pissing off the people responsible for taking your product the last mile? Logic would suggest that as digital distribution results in fewer and fewer physical items being transported the the per unit cost of shipping anything will have to increase.

But rather than spending the money on postage, old media band together and spend money trying to reform the Postal Service. It will likely be as successful as using print advertising to convince people that magazines are still relevant.

[Link: Media Post and Los Angeles Times]