Having once been a sales rep for a paper company who also made newsprint, I'm saying there was lots of USA newsprint - until the tree huggers made it impossible to operate and/or expand our mills to be competitive with the Canucks and Asians.
From a business standpoint, the reduction in new paper readership in lieu of getting news from the internet was a blessing, over the long term.
Excellent point. As one who lives in Maine for about 30 years and has watched paper mills close one question comes to mine. Why did not a group of newspapers buy a paper mill or two. Simple vertical integration?
Henry Ford made autos but also the steel and glass for the cars. He has some ownership in the iron ore mine in either Minnesota and/or Michigan and he had his own fleet of ore boats on the Lakes to carry the ore to the Detroit area.