Newsprint shortage hits rural publishers hard

Supply-chain issues, coupled with the recent blockade by truckers in Canada, have resulted in a shortage of newsprint at rural newspapers.

Writing in the Rural Blog, Buck Ryan reports that some papers may go unprinted because of the paper shortage, which he attributes not just to the Canadian blockade but also to not enough truck drivers and to paper companies switching from newsprint to more lucrative products.

Ingrained reading habits combined with poor broadband access make print newspapers a still-viable medium in rural parts of the country, as I wrote last September. So this is the last thing that the struggling local news business needs right now.