A New York hedge fund, One Rock Capital Partners, bought Northern Pacific Paper in 2016. Northern Pacific Paper makes about half the newsprint made in this country. The mill was not at full capacity so, like many hedge funds, they bought the mill figuring they would increase production by getting the government to help. They did and now, we, the readers of this and other newspapers will probably have to pay more or have a smaller paper or lose Journalists.

Why is the newsprint (second biggest expense) going up in price? The government helped the New York hedge fund get a thirty percent tariff on Canadian paper. Except for that hedge fund almost every organization has protested because of the damage it will do to small newspapers and even large ones like Trump’s nemesis, the New York Times. The Times is an investigative paper owned by Jeff Bezos. Bezos is the founder and CEO of Amazon which Trump has made the object of his scorn.

Commerce Secretary William Ross says it will add a cent or two to a newspaper but the Longview Daily News says it will increase the cost about a nickel or the salary of two reporters. The increase will cause many small papers to close. Like this paper and other small town papers, who will do the investigative reporting in their community? The Chicago Tribune is a fine regional paper but it isn’t going to do much in Joliet, Coal City, Morris, Channahon, or New Lenox. The digital “reporting” is usually suspicious at best and the stories on the social media are usually trash. The Russian’s stories about Clinton and other divisive issues was swallowed by the gullible but not printed by the newspapers. An administration that depends on lies does not want responsible reporting printing the truth.

Tell every Representative and Senator to support the bi-partisan bill; Protecting Rational Incentives In Newsprint Trade Act. Ask your friends that may not read a paper to do so. The shutting down of newspapers may be just the first step in stopping factual reporting. The administration also declared war on the Public Broadcast System. We must stop it here!