Here’s a dark cloud we can see in the newspaper world, though it may be barely visible to our readers. But newspapers around the country are seeing it, and they are coalescing, insomuch as newspapers can agree on anything, to ward off this danger.

Plunging orders for newsprint over the last two decades — that’s the stuff that we publish this newspaper on — have caused more than a dozen U.S. paper manufacturers to go out of business or produce paper products for other purposes. That drove prices for newsprint up, as fewer manufacturers were available to produce newsprint products that are a lifeline for our printed newspapers.

The result: Costs to newspapers like ours have moved only upward. Fortunately for many U.S. newspapers, Canadian manufacturers have filled in the gap as the number of U.S. manufacturers of newsprint dwindled. That stabilized some newspapers’ costs for the last 10 years or so. Well, until last summer.

That was when North Pacific Paper Co., or NORPAC, from Washington State, contended that the Canadians weren’t playing fair. NORPAC alone complained to the U.S. Commerce Department and the International Trade Commission that the Canadians were violating trade laws. They said the Canadian government was allowing companies to harvest trees off government land, that the government was giving Canadian companies loans, advantages NORPAC couldn’t get in the U.S.

The Canadians see things differently. They contend that market forces are at play here, that as newspapers published smaller print editions or merged or even closed, the demand for newsprint has dropped.

The U.S. investigation continues, but new duties — 6.5-10 percent in January, 22 percent in March — were imposed on Canadian manufacturers. That money’s being held in escrow until the investigation ends. But if NORPAC’s charges stick, guess who will pay for that?

Right now, the paper in your hand may cost 10 percent more to produce than it did a few weeks ago. That cost may rise to 40 percent for some newspapers. Some major paper companies, which own manufacturing facilities north and south of the Canadian border, are ramping up prices now. If the tariffs stay in place, the cost of producing a print product may become prohibitive.

Well, if profits improve for U.S. manufacturers, won’t those companies gear up for manufacturing newsprint again? No. Paper manufacturers are at near capacity — 97 percent — and reopening old mills for newsprint is too expensive and takes too long. In short, they’re not interested.

This newspaper is not feeling the immediate sting of this issue. Our newsprint comes from Mississippi. Others in our company — we are part of Boone Newspapers, which publishes 82 community newspapers — are facing tough decisions now that we in Texas might face later.

For now, we’ll send letters to U.S. Sens. John Cornyn and Ted Cruz as well as to our congressman, U.S. Rep. Randy Weber, and ask them to support community newspapers by weighing in on this issue to the appropriate places.

Some readers, who access their news online may yawn at this imbroglio involving dueling manufacturers. Why not just publish on a digital platform, they might suggest.

Here’s the problem, felt industrywide: The digital product cannot exist without the printed product that sustains it. In many cases, printed advertising and readership dollars still comprise about 70 to 90 percent of a media company’s revenues.

Papers like The Port Arthur News provide a digital newspaper free to our print customers and provide an electronic edition to our E-edition only subscribers. But without the printed product, we could not do that.

We will send urge our elected congressmen to stand behind our industry by writing them at:

U.S. Sen. John Cornyn

517 Hart Senate Office Building

Washington, DC 20510

www.cornyn.senate.gov

U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz

Russell Senate Building 404

Washington DC 20510

www.cruz.senate.gov

U.S. Rep. Randy Weber

1708 Longworth Building

Washington DC 20515

www.weber.house.gov

 

We hope you will do the same.

 

Ken Stickney is editor of the Port Arthur News.