Noteworthy: Trump tariffs terrorizing already troubled U.S. newspaper industry

By Bruce Penton on June 4, 2025.

About 80 per cent of newspapers in the United States use newsprint produced in Canada, and the recent tariffs are causing great pain in an industry already suffering from myriad other problems.

Declining circulation, reduced advertising revenue and a huge shift in demographics have put the newspaper industry on the critical list. The one saving grace is newspapers that have moved to a digital platform are surviving, but hardly thriving as they did in the industry’s glory days.

Thousands of publications in North America have gone under in recent years. Small communities where the local newspaper is (or was) the only source of information are experiencing a big loss. Millions of dollars in advertising revenue that once helped support a local paper are now in the cash registers of tech giants such as Meta and X.

The Trump tariffs are the latest nail in what will likely be a few more newspaper coffins. A recent story in the Columbia Journalism Review said the tariffs are not only eating away at a newspaper’s bottom line, but they’re causing uncertainty in the industry.

“It’s affecting our customers who are, for instance, holding back from making decisions about advertising,” said Martha Diaz Aszkenazy, the chairperson of the National Newspaper Association and publisher of the 10,000-circulation San Fernando Valley Sun.

“I just don’t know why we are doing this,” she said. “It seems like instead of making America great, we’re just making America scared.”

â€¢ The federal Conservatives are in no rush to conduct a leadership review in the wake of the recent election in which Pierre Poilievre lost his own Ottawa-area seat. Supporters of the party’s boss point out that the Conservatives showed increases across the board – more seats, a higher popular vote count – but came up short when the NDP and Bloc Quebecois share of the vote plummeted and went mainly to the Liberals.

There has been chitchat around the Conservative ranks about a leadership review in March, 2026. By then, Poilievre will have returned to the House of Commons by winning a by-election in a Conservative stronghold in eastern Alberta. But while former party leaders Erin O’Toole and Andrew Scheer discovered, party faithful don’t have a lot of patience for leaders who fail to deliver the top prize.

The Globe and Mail recently said that efforts are being made “to help with Mr. Poilievre’s image and message.” His image was cited as one of the negative aspects of his leadership. A headline in a pre-election story in the Toronto Star read: “Pierre Poilievre acts as if there is power in being unlikeable. It’s not a good look.”

What the Conservatives really need is a leader with a bit more charisma than Poilievre. Someone like Brian Mulroney, who could charm your socks off and then lead a Danny Boy singalong at a party. There must be somebody out there with similar attributes.

It’s true that the Poilievre-led Conservatives made impressive gains, but they’re likely to be sitting on the sidelines for four years before the next election. That offers plenty of time for the party to find a charismatic, charming leader who can lead the Conservatives across the finish line.

â€¢ The Root Cellar’s food drive that culminated with the collection of plastic bags filled with food last Saturday netted 45,127 pounds for the food bank’s shelves, said spokesperson Melissa Mullis. The bags were distributed in Medicine Hat, Dunmore and Redcliff the week before by a small army of LDS Church volunteers and picked up by the same volunteers on Saturday.

This year’s haul beat the 2024 total of 39,000 pounds and the 2023 total of 30,000 pounds. Mullis said there is more awareness about the food collection program now that it has been conducted for three years. “People find it so easy to donate food this way,” she said.

The LDS volunteers were organized into 150 routes that distributed and later picked up bags from 30,000 homes.

â€¢ Short snappers: Headline at the Canadian parody site, The Beaverton: “Alberta gets head start on life as a U.S. state by banning books” … Talk about a busy weekend that we just went through. Spectrum in Kin Coulee was a blast, with some great music, food and drink, vendors and people-watching; Tigers came up short, which was a bummer; Pecha Kucha at the Esplanade; and the Sean McCann concert at the library. … Calgary golf pro Wes Heffernan, who won the Alberta Open at Desert Blume last summer, has qualified for this week’s Canadian Open in Toronto. Maybe he and Rory McIlroy will battle it out down the stretch.