Postage Hikes Threaten Print Media

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Like all print media—from mainstream corporate conglomerates to alternative independent publishers—Z Magazine has suffered declining readership and sales in the past few years. This trend has been blamed primarily on reader migration to the internet, and secondarily on diminishing literacy and reading habits. Due to corporate consolidation in distribution and promotion, though, independent media are suffering more than the corporate mainstream. 

The latest bad news for independent print media came over the past few months when the U.S. Postal Service (USPS) announced a complex new payment rate system for mailed periodicals. Following a postal rate increase of about 5 percent last year, publishers had been told to expect another rate increase of around 12 percent this year. Instead, the proposed plan might cost us up to 30-40 percent more. 

The new rate system is designed to benefit large media conglomerates, whose mailing cost increases will be far less than smaller, independent publications. Some of the largest publications will even see their postal costs decrease as small publications face massive cost increases. There’s a reason for this—the plan the USPS adopted was largely written by Time Warner Inc., the world’s largest media conglomerate. 

Last year, the Postal Service tasked the independent Postal Regulatory Committee (PRC) with coming up with a plan to increase revenues. The USPS itself offered a plan for a periodical rate increase that would have raised costs for all publishers, more or less evenly, by around 12 percent. During the public comment period, Time Warner submitted their proposal. 

The Time Warner plan offered various incentives that could only be realized by large publishing groups, such as co-palletizing large numbers of magazines together or drop shipping from within postal zones via centralized printing and distribution centers. Rates for periodicals that could not meet the new incentives would increase dramatically. 

To the surprise of many, the PRC announced in late February that it was going with a plan similar to Time Warner’s, instead of adopting what the USPS had originally suggested. In March the USPS allowed only eight days for public comment on the 758-page PRC plan before they adopted it. This plan is so complex that even two months later publishers such as the Nation and Mother Jones have said they still cannot calculate exactly how much more their postal costs will be, though the Nation is currently estimating an increase of perhaps $500,000. 

Media historian Robert Mc- Chesney quotes a lawyer for a large magazine publisher as saying, “It takes a publishing company several hundred thousand dollars to even participate in these rate cases. Some large corporations spend millions to influence these rates.” McChesney also points out that the increases are a “radical reformulation” which “goes directly against 215 years of postal policy.” Postal discounts for periodicals had been promoted by early U.S. leaders such as Thomas Jefferson and James Madison to allow the population “full information of their affairs,” specifically intended for small political publications to “penetrate the whole mass of the people.” Even Federalist Alexander Hamilton (as a fiscally conservative Treasury Secretary) conceded that such rate discounts were necessary for the good of the country. 

A letter from several small publishers sent to the USPS Board of Governors in April said, “These new rates will have grave consequences for disseminating the very type of information our founding fathers strove to protect and foster when they first established the public postal service.” According to a study by McGraw Hill cited in the letter, “Some small magazines will no doubt go out of business. Some will be forced to produce a lesser product to pay for these increases.” 

Though the public comment period has passed, public outcry against the plan has been growing and is having some effect. Implementation of the new fee structure has been delayed from May until July 15, and a “Stamp Out The Rate Hikes” campaign is underway to generate further public opposition through letters and other actions. 

Left media’s problems are systemic, but not impossible to overcome. Foundations and wealthy donors are not usually friendly to organizations like ours, which promote a restructuring of society along non-hierarchical lines from below. Instead, radical left media in the U.S., from book publishers to alternative weeklies, need ongoing help from our communities of readers and grassroots supporters. 

As the devastating effects of neo-liberal economics and neo-conservative military adventures continue to spread across the globe, it’s up to all of us to keep spreading the stories of resistance and to keep alive the few outlets promulgating these stories, especially within the heart of the empire itself. 

Z 

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