USPS proposes 25 percent postage increase for newspapers

Postal rates in May 2007 could rise nearly 25 percent for in-county newspapers if the U.S. Postal Service (USPS) has its way, and annual increases are in store for the foreseeable future.

USPS announced that it intended a larger rate hike for local newspapers than for virtually any other mail class. 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.

Stephen M. Kearney, Postal Service vice-president of pricing and classification, said the increases were planned to cover rising postal costs, including health care for retirees and higher fuel costs. He also said USPS wanted rates that send appropriate signals to mailers to change their mail to shapes and containers that were more efficient for USPS to handle.

“National Newspaper Association vigorously opposes this increase,” said NNA President Jerry L. Reppert. “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.

NNA will intervene in the Postal Service’s planned rate proceeding before the Postal Rate Commission, where it will advocate more reasonable rate hikes for newspaper mail.