NEWSPRINT COST

Press, Volume XCV, Issue 28257, 20 April 1957, Page 12

NEWSPRINT COST

British Inquiry Recommended (N.Z. Press Association—Copyright) LONDON, April 17. The president of the 14,000member National Union of Journalists (Mr George Reed) said today that last month, the United States Senate Commerce Committee had begun an inquiry into newsprint prices. “There seems to my mind every reason why one should be made in Britain, too,” he said. He told the union’s annual meeting at Harrogate, Yorkshire, that newsprint cost nearly £6O a ton —almost six times its pre-war figure. “With such costs no paper can be said to be absolutely free from the threat of closure —and no journalists are safe from the dread of unemployment,” said Mr Reed.

“No other industry in the country suffers the burden that ours does in the way of the cost of raw material.”

Mr Reed noted the record profits of the newsprint companies.

Last year, four of the big newsprint producers in Britain made trading profits among them of more than £27,ooo,ooo—their biggest recorded profit. Yet only two months ago the price was raised again, he said. Today, the national newspapers might pay out as much as 50 per cent, of all their costs for newsprint alone, while provincial evening newspapers, with circulations between 100,000 to 250,000, might pay from 40 to 50 per cent, of their costs for newsprint. It had been said that if the newsprint prices were cut by £4 10s a ton there would be no need for any newspaper in. Britain to close, in spite of the competition from commercial television advertising, said Mr Reed.