A meeting with the PMG

Matt Paxton

Jan 1, 2026

On Monday, Dec. 8, a delegation from NNA met with Postmaster General David Steiner at USPS headquarters in Washington, D.C. NNA Public Policy Director Lisa McGraw, NNA’s Washington representative Rafe Morrissey, NNA Executive Manager Lynne Lance and NNA MTAC representatives Brad Hill and I represented the association.

During introductions, Postmaster General Steiner recalled how he had delivered newspapers as a paper boy when he was growing up. He said also that he had gotten a local paper from Louisiana mailed to him as an adult living in southern California. He said that he really appreciated the physical print newspaper and still does.

The NNA team emphasized our reliance on the Postal Service and our entwined history in promoting an informed citizenry, and we expressed our appreciation for the willingness of Postal Service staff to meet regularly with NNA representatives to address specific concerns, particularly around systemic delivery problems that some of our members are experiencing. These monthly meetings have begun to bear fruit, although work remains to identify and correct bottlenecks in the system.

At the same time, we expressed our concerns about increasingly erratic delivery times in general and the dramatic increase in mail rates over the past five years.

We talked about the recently implemented Regional Transportation Optimization (RTO) plan, which adds at least one day to delivery times for mail originating more than 50 miles from a regional mail processing center. We made the point that we believe the Postal Service has essentially created a two-tier system of favored customers in more urban areas and disadvantaged customers in rural communities.

Regarding costs, we explained how most members prepare mail in a way that minimizes cost to USPS and delivery time through carrier-route presorting, walk sequencing and Exceptional Dispatch. We pointed out that we don’t believe that in-county Periodical mail rates accurately reflect the true cost of delivering that mail and that the Postal Service probably doesn’t really know those costs since it’s been almost 20 years since a cost study of in-county mail has been done.

We also asked that more be done to get newspapers into the Postal Service’s delivery measurement system, particularly for containers and bundles. Ultimately, individual piece scans, like those done on packages and other barcoded mail, would give us complete visibility of newspaper mail from acceptance to delivery, but the Postal Service says it doesn’t have the capability to piece-scan newspapers at this time.

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. He expressed some frustration with the Postal Regulatory Commission’s role in acting as a regulator on the monopoly Market Dominant classes of mail, of which Periodicals is one.

Overall, though, the meeting was positive and cordial, and beneficial in that there was an open sharing of views on the direction of the Postal Service, particularly newspaper mail.

The most valuable take-away for our team was the readiness of Postmaster General Steiner to meet and talk with us and other Postal Service customers, an attitude that was lacking in the previous administration of USPS. I think all of us on the NNA team agree that problem-solving in a mutually respectful, cooperative manner generally gets better results for all.

I don’t want to make this sound like it’s necessarily going to be smooth sailing for our newspapers as far as delivery issues, postal deliver policy and mailing rates go, but I’m hopeful that this new administration will be more willing to take our concerns into account. Time will tell, and you can be assured that your NNA postal team with continue to press our members’ concerns, as NNA has since 1885.

Matt Paxton is NNA postal chair and a member of the Mailers Technical Advisory Committee for NNA, along with Brad Hill of Interlink and NNA's Lynne Lance.