Episcopal Press and News
Editors Assess Postal Rate Jump
Episcopal News Service. January 21, 1982 [82012]
NEW YORK (DPS, Jan. 21) -- Publishers of religious journals have spent more time with their calculators than their typewriters this past two weeks as they try to assess the impact of a government "Christmas present": the major jump in second-class postal rates.
Publishers were notified late last year that in the November-December federal budget imbroglio Congress abruptly had eliminated subsidies for secondclass non-profit mailings in spite of earlier assurances that the subsidy would continue to be phased out over a period of years. The result was that the Postal Service Board of Governors created new rate structures which will mean doubling postal costs, in most cases.
The rates are based on a complicated formula that takes in the amounts of editorial and advertising material, weight, pre-sorting, and geographic area served so the percentages differ widely among Episcopal dioceses. Chicago, whose publication is a heavy, coated-stock magazine, anticipates a tripling of rates while Los Angeles, which publishes a tabloid newspaper in a fairly concentrated geographic/political area, expects to pay less than 60 percent more.
Since the rates took formal effect Jan. 10, most editors could only speculate on the actual cost but a random survey found no one disagreeing with the Rev. Boone Porter of The Living Church who felt they would cause "severe hardship" to all religious publications.
Church publications usually operate on a very narrow margin so it is impossible to say which ones will suffer the most, hut the clear dollar losers are the national publications, such as The Episcopalian, The Witness and The Living Church. Henry McCorkle, editor and publisher of The Episcopalian, speculates that his annual postal bill for the 260,000 circulation monthly tabloid may approach $250,000, more than $110,000 above what had been budgeted.
Early reactions to this "Christmas present" ranged from open dismay, through anger and a sense of betrayal, and church press associations are gearing up to press Congress for some redress when the session reconvenes.
In support of this, the Rev. Canon James Bingham, editor in Maryland, and Roman Catholic, Lutheran, Methodist and Maryland Council of Churches communicators took advantate of President Reagan's Jan. 21 visit to Baltimore to issue a stinging denunciation of the move and the way in which it was done.
In a televised press conference Jan. 20, the religious editors said the move "ruptured without apology or explanation an agreement" that had been hammered out over years of negotiation. Noting that the non-profit press, unlike its commercial sisters, was "almost entirely a captive of the postal system," they pointed out that the move also violated a principle of postal service laid down by George Washington that low cost access to postal service was "essential to public education and the survival of democracy."
They appealed to the Reagan administration and to Congress to "recognize that an injustice had been done" and urged steps to get postal rates "back or track" so that the non-profit mailers would get a "fair shake."
In a talk before the press conference, Bingham asserted that the real issue was "access to communication channels. Coupled with the restructuring of Federal Communication Commission regulations, this action very clearly says only the wealthy will be able to communicate."
The new rates also confront Church people with the question of what value they place on communication. Barbara Leix Braver, editor of the Massachusetts diocesan paper, said her editorial board had explored two options: collapsing down to seven issues a year from the current ten, or asking Diocesan Council for added funds. "We are going to go the latter route," she said, "because we feel that effective communication undergirds the mission work of the Church. If people are not informed and knowledgeable about what is going on in the Church, they won't support it."
That same feeling is echoed, in a somewhat different approach, by Christopher Walters-Bugbee, editor of The Communicant of North Carolina.
"It's a real blow," he concedes, "and I can't absorb it all in my budget, but I can't get as exercised about this as some have done. We knew it was coming and it is simply the real cost of doing business. Given any other option, it is still a bargain. I hope it will encourage a long hard look at Church communication and from that, some firm decisions to support it realistically."
Hoping to spur such an examination, the Rev. Richard J. Anderson, executive for communication at the Church Center, wrote in mid-January to all diocesan bishops.
Noting the grave nature of the blow, Anderson urged the bishops to "not lose sight of the important part these publications have in the total life and work of the Episcopal Church. Newspapers and magazines are sometimes considered to be frills or luxuries within the Church's mission, but in fact they are at the heart of all we do. I urge you to do everything you can to support the continuation of the generally excellent service these publications and the people who edit them are giving to the whole Church. Not all church bodies have the network of diocesan newspapers we have, and it is my hope that this vital part of our mission will be continued."