Postal Rates May Rise as Much as 25% for In-County Newspapers

By: by E&P Staff Postal rates could rise nearly 25% for in-county newspapers in May 2007 if the United States Postal Service has its way, and further annual increases are in store, the National Newspaper Association (NNA) revealed today.

USPS announced this morning that it intends a larger rate hike for local newspapers than for virtually any other mail class, NNA declared. The proposed increase is the highest in more than a decade. The announcement came with the filing of proposed rate increases for all mail, including a 42 cent first-class stamp. Rates would be expected to go into effect around May 2007.

"National Newspaper Association vigorously opposes this increase," Jerry L. Reppert, NNA president and publisher of the Anna (IL) Gazette-Democrat, said in a statement. "This has to be one of the saddest days in the history of community newspapers and the Postal Service, which has always been one of our strongest partners. USPS seems to be saying our mail is no longer desirable because newspapers are shaped like newspapers and have to be transported in containers that the Postal Service no longer wants to use.

"I don't know what choices we have," Reppert said. "Newspapers cannot be mailed on pallets, as a rule. We must use sacks or trays for transporting bundles through the mail system. And short of throwing out our printing presses and putting newspapers on tidy little sheets of typing paper, or dispensing with mail delivery altogether, we are limited in what responses we can make to these price signals. Our product is pretty much unchanged -- except for being a little smaller and a lot more colorful -- since Benjamin Franklin was postmaster general. It is the Postal Service that has changed, and as it has constructed automation and transportation systems that have been largely unfriendly to newspapers, it seems to be making strategic decisions that we have become dispensable."

NNA Postal Committee Chairman Max Heath, vice president of Landmark Community Newspapers, Inc., said NNA had a long history of working with USPS to improve mail efficiency and timely delivery, and would continue to do so, but that he was prepared to fight against the sizeable rate increase.

?We faced a similar shock in 1994, when the Postal Service thought our costs had gone up nearly 34 percent. NNA fought that, and with the Postal Rate Commission's help and a cooperative spirit within the Postal Service management, we were able to turn back a terrible increase before it hit newspaper mailers. Circumstances are different now, but we intend to examine the causes for this proposal, and work hard to avoid this magnitude of a rate hike,? Heath said in a release. "I have to believe that the planners for this rate case do not fully appreciate the damage they will inflict upon community newspapers, and therefore upon local communities, if they continue in the direction they seem to be headed."