 From the Freeport (Illinois) Journal-Standard
We are grateful for those of you who are reading today's print version of our newspaper in your easy chairs or at your kitchen tables or whatever you call your reading room.
However, our ability -- and the ability of all newspapers nationwide -- to continue to provide a print product will be compromised if a preliminary decision by the U.S. Department of Commerce to levy tariffs on imports of Canadian newsprint and other paper products goes into effect.
"If this decision is allowed to stand, it will result in significant long-term cost increases for our company," said Bradley M. Harmon, president of the GateHouse Media Central U.S. Publishing. The Rockford Register Star and The Journal-Standard of Freeport are among 21 daily and 55 weekly newspapers published by GateHouse in Illinois. Nationally, GateHouse publishes in 36 states and 540 markets. The company has 130 daily newspapers, more than 640 community publications and more than 540 local market websites that reach more than 21 million people each week.
"On behalf of our employees and our customers, we join with others in the newspaper industry to urge the Commerce Department to reconsider this decision, and barring that, for lawmakers to take action to override the decision."
The tariffs would increase costs for the Register Star, The Journal-Standard and the other newspapers in the GateHouse group by almost 10 percent. That kind of increase would be tough for any business to absorb.
The two biggest costs in a newspaper operation are people and paper. The Register Star and Journal-Standard spend millions of dollars a year on paper, and an increase of almost 10 percent amounts to hundreds of thousands more in production costs.
A petition by a single papermaker in Washington state resulted in the Commerce Department decision. The North Pacific Paper Company, or NORPAC, asked the Commerce Department to investigate Canadian imports of "uncoated groundwood paper," the grade of paper widely used by newspapers and other commercial publishers.
"We are stunned that a single U.S. mill in Longview, Washington, has been able to manipulate the trade laws to their gain, while potentially wreaking financial havoc on newspapers and other commercial publishers across the country," said the News Media Alliance, which represents more than 2,000 U.S. news organizations, in a statement Wednesday.
"This decision and its associated duties likely will lead to job losses in U.S. publishing, commercial printing and paper industries.
"The well-documented decline in the U.S. newsprint market is not due to unfair trade, but to a decade-long shift from print to digital distribution of news and information," the Alliance statement said. "Now, we will all literally pay for one manufacturer's manipulation of our country's trade laws. These tariffs will saddle publishers with additional costs that will hasten the newspaper industry's shift to digital and, consequentially, accelerate the decline in both the printed newspaper and newsprint industries. There will be no winners."
The Commerce Department's preliminary decision will be reviewed by the International Trade Commission for a final ruling, probably in March. Tariffs will be collected starting Tuesday and refunded if the decision is reversed.
The U.S. newspaper publishing and commercial printing sector employs more than 600,000 people across the U.S., according to the Alliance.
Our people make our newspapers what they are, and our commitment to our communities and to the First Amendment will not change no matter the outcome of the tariff decision.
We will remain your primary source of local news, information and advertising. We will continue to serve as a government watchdog and as an outlet for the voices of the people. We remain committed to accuracy, fairness, high ethical standards and professionalism in all departments.
We will do our best and we thank you for reading whether it's online or in print.
GateHouse Media Ohio and The Columbus (Ohio) Dispatch, a GateHouse publication, contributed to this editorial.
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