Editorial: Newspapers under siege

“I can tell you this: We are putting out a damn paper tomorrow.” — Capital Gazette reporter Chase Cook, tweeting after five of his colleagues were shot dead June 28.

If you’re reading this, you probably value local news. Whether it’s online or in traditional print, some part of you likes – maybe even loves – your local newspaper. So listen when I say you need to stand up for it… now.

For a hundred years, the newest medium has always been going to kill the newspaper. Radio, television, and the Internet have each been a harbinger of doom for the printed word. Newspapers survived, but now new threats have emerged.

First up is the tariff on newsprint. Earlier this year, the US Department of Commerce imposed a tariff on newsprint from Canada. This action came after one company claimed Canadian mills were dumping newsprint on the US market at low prices.

The petitioner, the North Pacific Paper Company (NORPAC), operates in Washington state but is owned by a Wall Street hedge fund. Interestingly, it is estimated that only 4.6 percent of Canadian newsprint goes into NORPAC’s market. And yet the company is seeking tariffs of up to 50 percent. The industry widely opposes these tariffs, but already the Commerce Department has given preliminary approval to total duties up to 32 percent, according to the News Media Alliance.

Newspapers’ print readership nationwide has fallen off in the last 20 years as more readers move to digital delivery and as big daily papers’ circulations have declined. (Community newspapers’ circulations have generally held steady.) As a result, there are fewer American mills making newsprint, and even at peak capacity they cannot come close to supplying the market’s total demand, which makes it necessary to import paper from Canada.

The Enterprise is printed at Community Printers in Shamrock, using newsprint from American mills, but the market is very tight. Earlier this spring, our printer and others were facing a critical shortage. One paper shipment was about a month late in getting to our press.

Coupled with the tight supply, the preliminary tariff is now having a ripple effect through the entire industry and the Enterprise’s printing costs have now gone up. And this may only be the beginning. We have learned that one Canadian newsprint mill is pulling out of the US market entirely, throwing another kink into the nation’s supply. Meanwhile, the Trump administration put tariffs on aluminum coming from Canada. Presses use aluminum plates to print newspapers, and this tariff will also spread throughout the industry.

The Commerce Department held hearings on the newsprint tariff as this issue went to press this week. Congressman Mac Thornberry (R-Clarendon) sent a letter to the department at the urging of Texas Press President Laurie Brown of The Canadian Record. We appreciate him doing that, and we’re asking Congressman Thornberry to consider joining 24 Republicans and four Democrats in co-sponsoring the PRINT Act (HB 6031) in the House of Representatives. If passed, the bill would halt the collection of newsprint tariffs until Commerce could study all the relevant issues and issue a report.

So what can you do? Call your Representative and ask him or her to support HB 6031.

Another big threat to local newspapers is a general disdain for “the media” fueled by a president who labels news outlets as “the enemy of the American people.”

The press has a tough job to do, and sometimes it ticks people off. People don’t like getting called out when they do stupid stuff. Some folks just can’t handle it. That was the case last month when a man with a grudge went into a local newspaper in Maryland – the Capital Gazette – and murdered five people and injured several more. He had held a personal grudge against the paper and several of its employees for years because they reported on him.

President Trump wasn’t directly responsible for those murders, and right after the attack, he said: “Journalists, like all Americans, should be free from the fear of being violently attacked while doing their job.”

But the next week, in Great Falls, Mont., USA Today reported the president pointed to news crews covering an event and said: “I see the way they write. They’re so damn dishonest. And I don’t mean all of them, because some of the finest people I know are journalists really. Hard to believe when I say that. I hate to say it, but I have to say it. But 75 percent of those people are downright dishonest. Downright dishonest. They’re fake. They’re fake.”

Seventy-five percent of journalists are dishonest? That’s crap.

I know and have known a lot of men and women in print and broadcast media, and I can tell you most journalists are honest and dedicated. Just as we shouldn’t label all cops as crooked based on the actions of a few, we shouldn’t be so quick to throw out honest journalism as “fake” because a negative report hurt this president’s feelings.

So what can you do? Well, first and foremost, subscribe to local journalism. If you think it’s important to have someone covering your city council or school board and holding those folks accountable for the job they do, then subscribe today to The Clarendon Enterprise, to the Canadian Record, to the Red River Sun, to the Fritch Eagle Press, or to whatever your local newspaper is. If you already have a subscription, buy one for a friend or a family member. Give the newspaper, and their advertisers, your support.

And secondly, think twice before you “like” or share some foolish meme on social media that labels news outlets as a bigger threat to American security than China, North Korea, or Russia. That’s the furthest thing from the truth, and it hurts the credibility every member of the press.

The newspaper industry is facing grave threats. But like always, we will persevere. And with your support, we will continue “putting out a damn paper.”