“This month, more than 1,100 newspapers in small and medium-sized communities across the United States signed a letter calling on Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross to heavily scrutinize the anti-dumping and countervailing duty petitions filed in September by Longview, WA-based paper mill, North Pacific Paper Company (NORPAC),” according to the News Media Alliance.
“NORPAC’s petition asks for steep import duties in excess of 50 percent on imports of uncoated groundwood paper from Canada. Such duties, if implemented, could result in steep increases in the cost of newsprint, which would cause widespread harm to local newspapers.
“Facing increased newsprint costs, the operations of many small-town papers will be threatened. This would only exacerbate the challenges already facing print newspapers and accelerate the decline of the newsprint industry – hurting all newsprint manufacturers and ultimately, hurting residents of local communities that rely on their local, community newspaper to stay informed.”
The rest of the article is here.
A world without a morning newspaper to read with my coffee would be awful to imagine!
Maybe it’s time to think about legalizing hemp. It’s easy to grow, doesn’t take a lot of water, harvests sooner than trees, could be local, makes good paper and fabric and the seeds are healthy for ingestion.