Weekly newspapers are facing major problems with the U.S. Postal Service due to the delivery of out-of-state subscriptions and serious delays with in-state subscribers due to the proposed closing of processing and distribution center facilities.
Most of our in-state subscribers receive their papers within a couple of days but our out-of-state subscribers may get their papers sometime the following week or they might even get two issues the same week.
National Newspaper Association President Merle Baranczyk says that newspaper publishers have complained about delivery delays for years, especially for delivery to out-of-state subscribers.
Without having solved very many of the delivery issues the Postal Service is now attempting to compete with newspapers involving insert advertising to help support some of its failures by offering special deals to a hand-picked business.
The deal the post office is making with Valassis will have a big impact on newspapers. If postal officials are able to make the deal with Valassis, which offers them a big discount to put their inserts in the mail, they will most assuredly offer these same deals to other companies who presently put their inserts in our newspapers.
The present cost to mail inserts through the post office is 14.5 cents per piece. Valassis has been offered a 20 percent discount or a mailing rate of 11.6 cents each. If this deal is approved then the post office might offer similar deals to others for as low as 10 cents per insert.
It is not right for an agency of the federal government to take an approach that is in direct competition with free enterprise. “The Valassis deal has the potential to be an assault on free enterprise, on newspapers and on democracy in America,” the NNA President wrote in a column published in the January issue of Publishers Auxiliary.
Newspapers in small cities and towns across our Country provide community news to their subscribers that is published in no other publication except the local newspapers. News about what their governments are doing, weddings, anniversaries, funeral notices and feature stories. And yes, advertising is what makes this possible.
The advertising market place is already very competitive and newspapers can compete with the competition as long as the rules are fair. This is the federal government targeting community newspapers, threatening their ability to survive and continue to cover the news.
We cannot accept this as just another blow from a longtime partner. We must take a stand as community newspapers and fight back. NNA is fighting back and we hope our subscribers will help out in the fight.
The NNA President believes that the Postal Service and Congress must be made to understand what the deal offered Valassis could lead to. An objection has been filed with the Postal Regulatory Commission and an appeal is being made in the federal court.
Postmaster General Patrick Donahue, other postal officials, senators and representatives need to hear what we as community newspapers believe about these deals offered Valassis which if successful will damage newspapers and the communities we serve.
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