Newspaper publishers seek relief from tariffs as costs surge

Hard-pressed newspaper publishers were in Washington, DC, Tuesday pleading before the International Trade Commission to roll back the tariffs on uncoated groundwood paper from Canada.

The tariffs imposed earlier this year have caused the price of newsprint to jump nearly 30 percent. Newsprint is the second-biggest cost behind salaries for papers.

Paul Tash, the chairman and CEO of the Tampa Bay Times, said the tariffs — along with the digital revolution — have drained ad dollars from already savaged newspapers’ bottom lines. Two decades ago, he said, his newsroom had 400 staffers. Today it is down to 140.

Tash said that the tariffs imposed by the Trump administration this spring added $3.5 million in costs to his paper, and the company compensated by making 50 staff cuts, including some in the newsroom.

Smaller papers are also feeling the pain. Andrew Johnson — publisher of the weekly Dodge County Pioneer in Wisconsin and a chain of several other weeklies — said he pays himself about $40,000 a year and that the tariff hikes added $23,000 a year in costs.

He has 12 full-time staffers and had to lay off one and convert another to part-time. Johnson is also the incoming president of the National Newspaper Association, which has a membership of 2,300 community newspaper publishers. Hiring freezes, staff reductions and cuts in paper consumption are the rule these days.

“The ironic thing is that forcing newspapers to cut pages, reduce days of delivery or go out of business will not help the one US newsprint producer that is supporting these tariffs,” Johnson said.

The tariffs were instituted when a Washington state mill of the North Pacific Paper Co., which is controlled by the New York hedge fund One Rock Capital Partners, said it was being undermined by cheaper Canadian goods being “dumped” into the US market.

The Commerce Department sided with the company, and tariffs were imposed to “protect” the US uncoated groundwood producers.

But Paul Boyle, head of News Media Alliance, said no other American mills joined in on the call for the tariffs. Instead of aiding American paper producers, it’s harming the newspaper and printing industries that collectively employ 600,000 people while helping the Washington-based mill that employs only 300.