Category Archives: Editorials

The newspaper industry’s challenge

A recent column on the nonprofit news website the Pennsylvania Capital-Star argues that Pennsylvania voters should receive more notice about proposed amendments to the state’s Constitution advanced by Republican lawmakers this year. The column’s author, Patrick Beaty, believes the notice requirements set by the Constitution are insufficient.

We have no position on the substance of the amendments or on Beaty’s call for more transparency surrounding the amendment process.

Nevertheless, his column offers an excellent illustration of a major challenge facing the newspaper industry: To reframe the debate around public notice by helping people understand that notices published in newspapers are also published on newspaper websites.

Hoosier State Press Association inaugural public notice summit rallies publishers

A close call during this year’s legislative session put the fear of god into newspaper industry leaders in Indiana. The Hoosier State Press Association responded by convening a Public Notice Summit, which was held Sept. 13 during the association’s annual conference and advertising awards gala.

“We had a big scare in our last session,” said HSPA Executive Director Steve Key, referring to a bill that was introduced in the state House that would have eliminated foreclosure notices in Indiana newspapers. “The bill got a hearing but died in a Senate committee.”

Officials’ Relatives’ Names Erased From Tax Delinquency List

The names of close relatives of two county commissioners were omitted from a delinquent-tax notice recently published in a weekly paper in Robeson County, North Carolina, according to The Robesonian. The county’s daily newspaper also reports that the names of the same individuals were wrongly excluded from the list the previous year, and that the practice of protecting certain individuals by deleting their names from the tax notices goes back at least two decades, according to a former Tax Office employee.

Publisher Loses Public Notice Contract, Decides to Run Notices For Free

Calaveras County, California is in the throes of tumultuous change. Located in the Sierra Nevada foothills, the mountain community is considering whether to replace the 600 homes destroyed last year by wildfires with medical marijuana farms. The issue has opened a huge debate that has engaged many of the county’s approximately 45,000 citizens and led to a series a ballot measures.

It’s the kind of place that really needs its public notice.