Community newspaper publishers voice frustration over USPS costs and delivery delays

Delayed newspapers can hurt a publisher's bottom line.
(Photo via NiemanLab)

U.S. Postal Service cost-cutting measures and process changes have slowed some local newspaper deliveries to a crawl, leaving frustrated local publishers searching for solutions, reports Sophie Culpepper of NiemanLab.

Smaller, more rural newspapers often use USPS because it is cheaper than hiring newspaper carriers; however, over the past decade, USPS has repeatedly raised postal rates even as its reliability decreased. Culpepper writes, "By the USPS’ own measurement, about 20% of periodicals were delivered late nationally between July 1 and Sept. 30, 2025, up from around 15% delivered late during the same period in 2024."

The Midcoast Villager in Maine is a community newspaper that is the "primary or only local news source for most of the 80,000 residents of Maine’s Knox and Waldo Counties," Culpepper writes. The Villager has tracked papers that are a week or more late. Delayed delivery can irritate readers, who may choose to drop their subscriptions. "Small local publishers can’t afford those losses, and they have little visibility into — or control over — the delays hurting their bottom lines."

The Villager's publisher, Willy Blackmore, shared his frustration with USPS in his 2025 editorial: "It bears mentioning that the Postal Service is just that, a service, and not a business that has historically had or needs a profit motive, but it is a service that the Villager spends over $49,000 on annually, and we decidedly are not getting what we pay for."

Rural papers in South Dakota are facing a similar struggle. David Bordewyk, the executive director of the South Dakota NewsMedia Association, told Culpepper, "I’m confident in telling you…100% of our newspapers are having problems with delivery."

In December, a National Newspaper Association delegation met with Postmaster General David Steiner, who used to be a paperboy, to discuss ongoing challenges and request a process for newspapers to enter into the Postal Service’s "delivery measurement system," which includes scans and barcodes that could track a newspaper from beginning to end.

In an update to NNA members, Matt Paxton, a publisher who attended the meeting with Steiner, wrote, "Postmaster General Steiner was attentive. But didn’t indicate that he plans to deviate at this time from the USPS’s Delivering for America Plan."