• by Ray Schultz , Columnist, 7 hours ago

Newspapers are facing one more threat to their survival: Newsprint is getting prohibitively expensive, due to a tightening of the supply chain, according to a scary article by Brier Dudley, editor of the Seattle Times Free Press. 

And this will surely lead to a decline in the number of print editions. 

“If these conditions persist, cost and supply challenges may lead more newspapers to reduce pages, as The Seattle Times is doing temporarily until supply improves, cut print frequency or accelerate plans to become entirely online products,” Dudley writes. 

That’s just what The Atlanta Journal-Constitution and any number of other publications have done. 

“It’s kind of a double-whammy for publishers,” says Kevin Craig, CEO of Page Cooperative, a “North Carolina nonprofit that purchases materials and services for around 1,200 newspapers,” according to Dudley. “It’s not only expensive, it’s really hard to find newsprint right now.”

Craig adds that newsprint prices  “have gone haywire — they’re as high as I’ve seen in many years,” Dudley reports.

Here’s one more contributing factor. 

“One of two remaining newsprint mills in the U.S., NORPAC in Longview, Wash., produced its last roll of newsprint on Tuesday. It was recently acquired by International Paper, an industry giant that’s prioritizing packaging products.”

Inland Empire Paper, the last surviving U.S. newsprint mill, is “booked and can’t fill any additional orders until June or July, Stacey Cowles, president of the Cowles Company that owns the mill, Dudley adds.

But Inland, too, seems to be changing its business model. “Cowles said Inland is also increasingly using its equipment to make packaging products such as bags,” Dudley continues. 

There’s one hint of good news in Dudley’s piece: the shortage could turn out to be temporary.