A License to Fix Prices

The power of the press is often exaggerated, but it was abundantly evident last week on Capitol Hill. Responding not to editorial thunder but to years of lobbying by publishers, the House passed a bill shielding the U.S. newspaper industry from antitrust laws. The vote was a lopsided 292 to 87. Since the Senate adopted a similar measure last January, 63 to 14, the legislation seems certain to become law.

The bills permit separately owned but jointly produced papers to pool profits and fix joint advertising rates that are not necessarily based on costs. The measures not only legalize the existing combined operations of 44 dailies in 22 cities (including St. Louis, San Francisco and Pittsburgh), but clear the way for most future arrangements of the same kind. There is no longer any legal dispute over rival papers sharing printing plants and advertising staffs. But publishers argue that without special antitrust exemption, some papers will succumb to rising production and labor costs, thus reducing the variety of editorial voices. The "newspaper preservation bill" is so protective, however, that Justice Department officials have called it "a license to fix prices," promote monopoly and suppress potential competition.

How have newspapers, which often denounce special-interest legislation, come so close to winning a form of antitrust immunity granted to no other unregulated U.S. industry? For one thing, the legislation has received little airing in the news columns of most U.S. papers. More important, today's 22 joint operations involve one Hearst, two New, house and seven Scripps-Howard dailies. In an election year, few legislators seem willing to risk unpopularity with the bosses of three of the nation's largest newspaper chains.

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