Publishers and Paper

At year's start WPB ordered newspaper publishers to cut their use of newsprint by 10% (TIME, Jan. 4). Reason: an imminent paper shortage. Some publishers really tried--by slashing the size and the number of features, by eliminating waste white space, by cutting out distant circulation, etc.--but many did not. Overall newsprint consumption was reduced only a fraction more than 5% through May.

Last week in Washington, members of the Newspaper Industry Advisory Committee met with WPB's printing and publishing division to see what could be done. Their recommendations: 1) that papers be allowed, with regional exceptions, to keep on hand only a 50-day paper supply (heretofore 75 days); 2) that a new, sliding scale of reductions, based on circulation (the biggest papers taking an additional 5% cut), be imposed. Its aim: to really effect, for the year, the 10% cut ordered six months ago.

Unlike most U.S. magazine publishers, many newspaper owners have been loth to ration their advertising or circulation; some of them have taken all they can get. Far from reducing newsprint consumption, a few U.S. metropolitan dailies have asked for (and gotten) extra paper to take care of increased business. In typical, war-swollen Seattle, circulations have soared--the Times is up 30% over a year ago--and so has advertising linage. On scores of papers the want-ad sections have blossomed into big cash-takers, as the manpower shortage forced employers to plead for "Girls 18-to-45."

And since the first WPB cut was not fully heeded, there was little substantial reason to think the second would be. If it is not heeded, some papers may well approach year's end virtually paperless. If it is, there will be smaller woman's, society and even sport sections; thinner Sunday papers; a first-come-first-served supply at newsstands, and shorter and more tightly edited (therefore better) news stories.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.