The June 2009 issue of The USIM Gazette is dedicated to June, the month, not a person named June, although the month is actually named after Juno, the goddess of marriage and household formation. The month June is often associated with both transition and balance. Transition: school graduations, marriages, start of summer (in northern hemisphere), busiest month for relocations (people moving), and so on. There are also numerous holidays in June related to events that changed people’s lives:

• Madaraka Day (June 1) – Commemorates when Kenya gained internal self-rule
• Philippine Independence Day (June 12)
• Juneteenth – Freedom Day (June 19) – Commemorates African American emancipation
• Summer Solstice (June 22-June 23) – Day with longest duration of sunlight (northern hemisphere)
• Flag Day (June 14) – Celebrates adoption of the stars and stripes as the official flag of the United States and as replacement for previous designs

This is just a sampling of holidays reflecting a transition from one condition to another.

Balance: June is also the sixth month in the Gregorian solar calendar. As such, it is at the midpoint of the 12 month calendar, a kind of fulcrum separating what has passed from what is to come. I particularly like the metaphor of June as a demarcation between the future and the past, as the Gazette had celebrated its first year of production in May 2009 and has begun to explore ways to deliver the content readers have expressed an interest in seeing more of in future editions, such as cutting-edge articles. This and future issues of the Gazette will include such content, as well as more media-related product reviews, employee biographies and artwork/illustrations.

I believe you will enjoy reading about the current state of advertising expenditures in “TNS Media Intelligence Reports U.S. Advertising Expenditures Declined 14.2 Percent in First Quarter 2009,” which is made available to the Gazette by TNS Media Intelligence. In June 2009, the oft-deferred (DTV Delay Act being the most recent abeyance) analog-to-digital broadcast transition was fully implemented nationwide, although about 3 million homes are estimated to have lost television reception as most TV stations turned off analog transmission on June 12. An update to the digital transition is included in the June 2009 Gazette. The adaptations characterizing the newspaper industry are reviewed in the article, “Wall Street Journal Continues to Change in Order to Survive,” which specifically analyzes the evolving newspaper industry through the microcosm of The Wall Street Journal newspaper, the nation’s second largest newspaper based on circulation. The next issue of the Gazette is scheduled for production in August 2009 – see you then.

Darrell Woody

Editor-Digital Communications