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03/29/2018

Newsprint situation serious; time to contact Congress

Dennis Hetzel 2018By Dennis Hetzel, Executive Director

It hardly bears repeating that no one wants to stomach increases in newsprint costs of 30 percent or more. But, just in case you need reinforcement on the impact, our ONMA member survey should do so. You’ll find some details below.

The time is now to contact Ohio senators Sherrod Brown and Rob Portman and your local member of Congress. You also should tell your readers what is happening and urge local businesses as well your local Chamber of Commerce to add their support.

You don’t need to be an expert on tariff policy and international trade when you contact Congress. They will hear the details from lobbyists for our industry (like me) if they haven’t already. If they have detailed questions, let them know you will tell the ONMA to quickly follow up. You can have tremendous impact by explaining clearly in your own words what these prices are doing to your ability to provide quality local journalism in your community and what the long-term impact will be on you, your readers and your advertisers.

We also urge you to write a letter or editorial to your readers. You can urge your readers to join you in petitioning members of Congress to exert their influence to rescind these tariffs.

Writing at Poynter.org this week, media analyst Rick Edmonds said Tampa Bay Times Publisher Paul Tash estimated the Times’ newsprint bill will go up 30 percent or $3 million in 2018 because of the tariffs. We hear similar horror stories from Ohio publishers.

Many members of Congress are home right now during the Easter recess. This is a perfect time to seek a face-to-face meeting. So, what are you asking Congress to do? You might say something like this:

One complaining newsprint mill in Washington State, which doesn’t sell newsprint to anyone in Ohio as far as I know, has convinced the U.S. Department of Commerce to take actions that will dramatically damage our business with claims that even groups in that industry don’t support.

We expect a final determination by the International Trade Commission in August. We implore you to recognize the serious damage this inflicts on Ohio’s newspapers and the communities they serve by urging the ITC by letter or testimony to reject the tariffs. (Note: Members of Congress will be receiving specific information on how this can be done, or we can provide that for you to send along.)

You also are free to share details of our member survey.

Twenty-three small and medium-sized newspapers or groups responded. We asked about the impact of the tariffs with “1” being no impact and “5” being severe. 

No one answered “1” or “2.” One response was a “3.” Two papers said “4” and 20 papers or groups gave this a “5.”  Seventeen respondents gave a “4” or a “5” in terms of likely job losses if the tariffs continue. We also hear a lot of talk of reductions in space and publication days.

Among those who responded, we are talking about 1,619 Ohio jobs and total circulation of 508,213. If you apply the rule of 2.5 readers per copy, that translates to nearly 1.3 million Ohioans. And the responses did not include any of Ohio’s largest newspapers.

That’s what we’re facing. The time to act is now.

ONMA will help any publisher who needs contact information, talking points or any other additional material. Just email me, dhetzel@ohionews.org, of call 614-486-6677.

 

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