Despite the hyperlocal mission of the Press, sometimes national news becomes local. One example is the impact that U.S. Department of Agriculture cuts have had on our schools, farms, and food pantries, as reporter Joan Eliyesil explains in her story in this week’s issue of the paper.
Less visible is the impact on local papers like the Press of the unsettling trade war between the U.S and Canada. Among the products subject to the 25% tariff imposed on Canadian goods by the president this month are paper and aluminum, both vital to the production of print newspapers that, like the Press, are already struggling to remain in the black. The role of newsprint in newspaper production is obvious, but aluminum is also important, used to make the plates that are inked to impress the pages of each edition. The cost of paper and aluminum is roughly 30% of the total cost of a week’s printing.
Tariffs on paper and aluminum went into effect March 4. Our printer, Graphic Developments, Inc. of Hanover, Massachusetts, has advised the Press they have enough inventory to last the month of March. But beginning April 1 the company says it will need to pass along the additional cost of the imposed tariffs in the form of an 8% surcharge on each printing.
The impact of these increases has already led one local daily, the family-owned Cortland Standard of Cortland, New York, to close. While a larger paper like the Boston Globe or New York Times may have ways to absorb the new tariffs, smaller papers like the Press will struggle to do so. We operate on the thinnest of margins, even after raising subscription and newsstand prices this spring. And those increases do not reflect the newly added costs of paper and aluminum about to hit our cash flow.
Intense lobbying against a tariff levied on newsprint in 2018 by the first Trump administration led to its overturn by the United States International Trade Commission, which ruled that American paper producers were not harmed by newsprint imports. We urge the New England Newspaper and Press Association and our legislators in Washington to contest these damaging increases. They help no one.