Tariff could spell end to what you hold today

Posted

Editor's note: This editorial by the Index-Journal of Greenwood was published on May 20.

It's Sunday morning. You went to the newspaper box this morning and grabbed up today's edition of the Index-Journal to complement your morning coffee. It's a part of your daily routine. And for some of you, having the newspaper in hand while at home or the office has been a decadeslong routine, but that could end soon.

We don't say that to falsely sound an alarm, either. Newspapers are under siege right now thanks to a tariff on newsprint created by a lone Washington State paper mill that is attempting to use federal trade laws to make newsprint roughly 50 percent more expensive. It claims a trade imbalance created because Canadian paper suppliers are supplying U.S. newspapers with the product at much lower costs. The fact is, however, that newsprint prices have climbed incrementally over the years in the U.S. as paper mills have dwindled. And, as the National Newspaper Association's president, Susan Rowell, has noted:

"Canadian paper producers have supplied the U.S. for many years. They have some natural advantages over U.S. papermakers because of hydroelectric power and shipping costs. More than a dozen U.S. mills have stopped making newsprint in the last decade because demand for paper has declined. Today, even if Canadian paper disappeared because of high tariffs being proposed to the federal government, the U.S. paper mills could not supply newspapers with the paper they need. Mills cost hundreds of millions of dollars to build and can take many years to be safely situated in compliance with environmental rules. With demand falling, no one is going to invest in a massive expansion of U.S. newsprint. Over the short term, tariffs could force the price of paper up, and the New York investors who own the Washington State mill could gain."

Ironic, isn't it, that a U.S. manufacturer of newsprint could actually do more harm to the industry it professes to serve, an industry that is already suffering greatly from market forces that have caused even major newspaper operations to shut down or significantly reduce the number of days it produces a print product and even slash newsroom staff to bare-bones levels in an effort to stay afloat.

A misguided mindset exists, one that believes digital delivery is the wave of the future, that the printed newspaper can, will and should disappear. Yes, newspapers are on board the digital train. Websites and social media platforms give us immediacy, the ability to share breaking news and update stories well before and well after production of our printed product. But digital is not the be all, end all.

Digital platforms are fleeting while what you hold in your hands today has permanence. And what you hold in your hands today is supported by advertisers in a way digital has yet to match. Without that revenue, newspapers cannot afford to exist. Subscriptions pay a mere fraction of our costs. A newspaper - your source for local news and information, which certainly includes retail, classified and legal advertisements - dies without ad support.

That revenue helps pay the wages earned by the advertising representatives and, as important, pays the wages earned by the professional writers and editors who attend the meetings and functions you cannot attend or are too busy to attend and who serve as your representative watchdogs of government and elected officialdom.

If the newsprint tariff is allowed to remain in place, the public will suffer right along with their newspapers. Small dailies such as ours do continue to buy ink by the barrel and newsprint by the metric ton, but our usage does not represent a sufficient piece of the pie to sustain the predicted escalating costs the tariff will bring.

In short, the Index-Journal and other community dailies and weeklies will have to reassess their business plan. Some will simply have to pull the plug and will cease to exist. Others will likely eliminate one, two or more days of delivering a print product. Cuts will be made in personnel, and rest assured that will have a significant impact on community newspapers' ability to adequately and properly cover the news. Features on your friends and neighbors? Gone. Election coverage? Gone. Coverage of your child's sports team? Gone. Crime coverage? Gone. Sales advertising? Gone.

Losing all or most of your community newspaper would be like having your bathroom mirror shatter. No longer would you have the longtime reliable resource that gives a true reflection of the community in which you live. It would be like trying to dress, shave or apply makeup with only a fragment of what once was on the wall.

But there is hope, and you can be a voice to help keep today's and future editions of this and other community papers arriving in homes.

Contact Sens. Lindsey Graham and Tim Scott and tell them to support a bill that was introduced May 14 under the sponsorship of Sens. Susan Collins, R-ME, and Angus King, I-ME, to require Commerce to suspend the tariffs while it carries out a study on the impact of the tariffs on the newspaper industry. Graham can be reached at (202) 224-5972. Scott can be reached at (202) 224-6121. You can also visit stopnewsprinttariffs.org and be more informed.