Editorial roundup
June 3,
Southwest Times Record: Deal would hurt media, taxpayers, businesses
The United States Postal Service, as we know all too well, is flailing wildly, cash- strapped and in the red. As have most parts of the country, western Arkansas and eastern Oklahoma have seen postalstation closings, service hours shortened and processing duties centralized. Overall, the Postal Service, like many businesses, responded to budget shortfalls by cutting services.
Nevertheless, we recently saluted USPS for its willingness to retain low- traffic but still vital rural post offices albeit at reduced hours. That’s a compromise cost- cutting measure we can support.
But the USPS’s latest plan to generate new business is simply not acceptable, not acceptable to small businesses and not acceptable to those who believe in an open marketplace.
The Postal Service recently proposed giving mass- mailer Valassis, a single company operating on a national scale, mailing rates discounted by 22- 36 percent. That would be one monopoly creating another monopoly at the expense of small- business owners and, ultimately, taxpayers.
Make no mistake, the USPS is a monopoly under the direction of a board of governors appointed by the president with the advice and consent of the Senate. Although it receives no tax dollars and is, theoretically at least, self- sustaining, the Postal Service operates under congressional oversight. As such, it should not be making sweetheart deals with individual for- profit companies.
When the Postal Service inserts itself into the competitive local advertising marketplace, it disrupts an already competitive scene in which newspapers, the Internet, radio, television, billboards and other sources fight for a share of business.
“The Postal Service at its historic root was founded by our nation’s leaders to bind the nation and support the crucial role newspapers play in democracy — of keeping citizens informed,” the National Newspaper Association’s board of directors stated May 21. “The Postal Service has a monopoly in the mail so it can serve the public, not so it can disrupt and damage the fiercely competitive market. If it treats all fairly and does its job well, the mail will grow via private business initiative.”
If, instead, this discriminatory pricing deal advances, it take advertising business from newspapers, advertising revenue that helps newspapers pay for their editorial package, both in print and on the Internet. Valassis provides no news or features or sports and employs no reporters or editors. It just mails advertising.
The Valassis deal follows on the heels of an earlier initiative called Every Door Direct Mail, which calls for postmasters to solicit newspaper advertisers to send ad mail directly from the post office rather than advertising in the news media, which weakens the ability of local news organizations to serve readers, according to NNA.
But it isn’t just newspapers and their readers that suffer from postal meddling. The Valassis contract would require the company to carry advertising only for companies with outlets in more than 30 stores. In other words, if you’re not part of a chain, you aren’t going to get to play. Ultimately the beneficiaries of the Postal Service’s plan will be the national mailer and the big chains. Smaller local retailers and manufacturers will be shut out of the deal.
Finally, although the contract would call for Valassis to increase its mail volume by a million pieces, that’s a million pieces at the steep discount. If small newspapers, those with the greatest reliance on the mail, withhold their business, the result could well be a net loss of business.
The Postal Regulatory Commission is reviewing the Negotiated Service Agreement with Valassis. We certainly hope members of that group will have more respect for fairness and an open marketplace than USPS has shown. June 4
Arkansas Democrat- Gazette: Suffer little children II: Today’s excuse for bad schools
In politics, national or otherwise, when there’s a problem, blame the other party. The Democrats ran up the national debt. Or the Republicans did. The Democrats are responsible for high gasoline prices. Or the Republicans are. The Democrats have let the country go to The Other Place in a hand basket. Or the Republicans did.
When a kid flunks a test, blame bad teaching.
When there’s a problem in the military, blame the brass.
When the fish aren’t biting, blame the wind out of the East.
And when you’re an apparatchik with the Little Rock School District, blame all your problems on charter schools. It’s as natural as marching lockstep with teachers’ unions or blaming all the schools’ problems on Them Lyin’ Newspapers.
Take, for good ( or bad) example, what one lawyer for the school district said about the waiting list for magnet schools. That waiting list has been called the school district’s dirty little secret, and for good reason.
Magnet schools were formed to attract students from better neighborhoods to schools in worse ones. The lure was supposed to be a lot of extras in the schoolbetter teachers and courses, higher standards and everything that goes with better schools. It was a way of getting students to volunteer for schools in neighborhoods they might otherwise never even visit. It worked. And it helped with school desegregation without the need for more busing. Magnets were a good idea all around. Except . . . . Magnet schools are such a good idea all around that there’s a waiting list to get into the ones in Little Rock. As many as 5,276 kids are said to be waiting on that waiting list in the state’s largest school district.
And 83 percent of them are black students.
What’s more, even if a seat comes open in one of the schools, it’s not assured that a black kid will get that seat.
The magnet schools are supposed to have a 50- 50 split between black students and students that aren’t. So even if a school has an opening, if there’s a surplus of black kids at that school, and not enough of the other kind to, well, balance the ticket, then that vacancy remains open and the black kid is told to stay in his own neighborhood school, however bad it may be.
Ridiculous? Certainly. But not any more ridiculous than those who would defend the practice.
Frederick Fields, who has an impressive title as the district’s Senior Director of Student Services, told the paper last week that the magnet schools’ waiting list and their lack of racial balance can be attributed to. . . . Charter schools! Charters are different from magnets. The charter schools in Little Rock aren’t run by the school district, as are the magnets. So, as some see it, their money isn’t being funneled through the “proper” channels.
“When charter schools came into play, then that opened the door for more of our non- black students to have other options, more choices,” Mr. Fields said. “Absolutely, the disproportionality has increased as charter schools opened.”
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