Stop postage rate increases that seek to punish newspapers, consumers

Postmaster General Louis DeJoy doesn’t want you to read this. He would just as soon you not have access to news that directly impacts your life and livelihood at all.

Through his continued actions in setting national post office policies and imposing punitive rate increases on newspapers, Postmaster General DeJoy is single-handedly working to drive community newspapers out of business in order to achieve the political goal of silencing local news and local voices.

According to a Northwestern University report, the United States is losing newspapers at a rate of two per week through closure or merger and since 2005, the country has lost more than one-fourth of its newspapers and is on track to lose a third of all newspapers by 2025.

In fairness, there are a number of demographic, technological, and economic factors at play that have contributed to the decline in the number of newspapers over that time period. However, DeJoy’s tenure has seen those processes accelerated by policy decisions that reduce timely delivery, undermine the economic health of community newspapers and forces newspapers into a spiral of reduced staff and increased costs to consumers.

Last week the USPS announced a 7.3% increase in rates for the “within county” mailing rate for newspapers. The new rates are scheduled to begin in January. By comparison the USPS is only proposing a 1.9% rate increase for other types of direct advertising mailings and first class mail. The justification for the rate the USPS gives is that the Post Regulatory Commission (PRC) now requires USPS to share more of the savings created when publishers do some of the work that postal workers would otherwise have to do, such as presorting the mail and transporting it to destination post offices. Traditionally, USPS has given a token discount for those savings, but because PRC is pushing the postal system to be more generous in sharing the savings, USPS is simply raising the basic rate so it can show a more acceptable discount.

Since the founding of the country, community newspapers have relied on the USPS for the distribution of newspapers to subscribers. It is no accident that Ben Franklin, a newspaper publisher, was the first postmaster general of the fledgling United States.

In recent years under the leadership of Postmaster General DeJoy, the focus has for the postal service to chase after the package and parcel business under the DeJoy’s “Delivering for America” plan. The plan allows for twice-yearly postage increases which allows USPS to raise rates to the fullest extent allowed above inflation.

Here in rural America, newspapers and subscribers rely on the Postal Service for timely distribution. Other options would only raise costs even higher or see greatly diminished service.

It is time to stop DeJoy from using the power to set postage rates to pick economic winners and losers and to halt his punitive attacks on community newspapers. Contact Congressman Tom Tiffany and U.S. Senators Ron Johnson and Tammy Baldwin and demand they take action to keep rate increases fair to all, reasonable in regard to inflation and only when necessary.

Central Wisconsin Publications Editorial Board consists of publisher Kris O’Leary and Star-News editor Brian Wilson