By Reed Anfinson

Grant County Herald

“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.” – First Amendment To the U.S. Constitution

Though these words are considered the heart of the Bill of Rights and the U.S. Constitution, they ring hollow when a president or Congress can so easily strip them away. Not through direct action, but by eviscerating the press’s financial survival through actions or inaction that is legal. 

“Congress shall make no law… abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press.” 

Devastating tariffs that drastically increase the cost of producing a newspaper violate these rights guaranteed by the First Amendment just as effectively as any law that would prohibit the publication of stories about government wrongdoing.

If implemented, they will result in communities in rural America losing their only source of news – their local newspaper. They will result in staff being cut and fewer pages printed by those that survive. They will result in public bodies being uncovered by the press.

Tariffs on newsprint are a tax on the First Amendment.

The public’s right to know is fundamentally tied to the ability of the press to report on government. Nowhere is the community newspaper more valuable, more needed, than in our rural communities. We are the only source of news. 

Many radio stations long ago abandoned their coverage of local governments and community news. Most read the local newspaper’s articles or interview a local politician or an administrator, but have no background on the subjects they discuss other than the government’s talking points.

What replaces us when we’re gone? Divisive national TV news programs and internet websites. Foreign adversaries to America’s democratic government – Russia, Iran, North Korea. With the aid of artificial intelligence (AI) programs, they are becoming more sophisticated in mimicking local news sites and newspapers. 

There is the one guy sitting with his computers on the East Coast who has established 355 websites pretending to be local news sources. “Good Day Fort Collins is one of them.” He uses A.I. to skim local news from public websites, Facebook posts, and other social media to create a “local” news source – one person and 355 sites that pretend to be local.

First, we thought the tariffs would be imposed in February, but Trump delayed them until early March. They were delayed again in March, but are now poised to be implemented April 2. It caused chaos in the newspaper world and is already costing us more.

How does a newspaper raise its subscription and advertising rates in reaction to tariffs that are threatened one month, then delayed for another? We really can’t. If we raise our rates to cover a 25% increase in our newsprint costs today only to have those tariffs taken off a week later, we will have to lower our prices.

We are one of 43 newspapers that print at Quinco Press in Lowry. Quinco buys between $250,000 and $300,000 worth of newsprint annually from a paper mill in Alberta, Canada. A 25% tariff would increase our costs by $63,000 to $75,000. 

Why not just buy newsprint in America? Based on recent statistics, 80% of all newsprint used in the U.S. comes from Canada. We don’t have the capacity in America to meet the demand – not anywhere close to it. We know that increased demand from those American suppliers will cause a damaging spike in prices that is likely not to fall back to current levels. It happened when Trump imposed tariffs on Canada in 2018. 

Small newspapers, like The Village Reporter, are the most vulnerable to tariffs, Publisher Forrest R. Church of Montpelier, Ohio, writes. “We don’t have the luxury of economies of scale or vast corporate safety nets. We are community-driven, reliant on local advertisers and loyal readers. And while our readers are supportive, there’s only so much we can ask of them.

“The consequences of these tariffs stretch beyond the financial strain on publishers. Rural communities, the heartland of America, depend on their local newspapers for more than just headlines. We are the record-keepers of high school sports triumphs, the chroniclers of town hall decisions, and the storytellers of community milestones. Without us, these stories risk being lost…,” he writes. 

His words and worries are repeated in community newspapers nationwide – newspapers in red and blue states.

Founding fathers Thomas Jefferson and James Madison knew an informed electorate was fundamental to a free society and a stable representative democracy.

Madison said: “A popular government without popular information or the means of acquiring it is but a prologue to farce or tragedy or perhaps both.” We fear that farce and tragedy are unfolding with journalism in small-town America on the verge of collapse.

Jefferson saw a real danger in the general population becoming disengaged from what their leaders were up to and where that could inevitably lead.

  “If once they become inattentive to the public affairs, you and I, and Congress, and Assemblies, judges and governors shall all become wolves,” the nation’s third president wrote. 

These strong beliefs and fears were why they chose to write freedom of the press into the First Amendment. It was their reason for supporting newspapers financially with public notice and nearly free postal rates.

People with extraordinary wealth think little of those who don’t have much. Damage to their businesses, lives, safety, communities, and families is acceptable in the political games they play. Their gains, if any, won’t undo the damage done to the average American consumer, business owner, or farmer.

The people’s right to know what their local elected officials are up to means little if there is no way to report on their actions. It means little if they don’t know the names of those running for office, their stands on issues, or how their actions will affect your safety, quality of life, and taxes.