One of the most important factors in maintaining newspaper notice is the strength of the relationships between local publishers and their representatives in the state legislature. The relationships don’t need to be particularly close. They don’t even need to be politically harmonious as long as there is a baseline of trust. Public officials who can put a face to their local paper are much more likely to consider its policy concerns.
How not to defend public notice
Custer County isn’t the only jurisdiction in Colorado where controversy has erupted over the publication of local notices. Greenwood Village and Pitkin County have had their own recent dust-ups over the designation of their local papers of record. The Pitkin County story is particularly instructive for the wrong reasons.
In late July, Pitkin’s Board of County Commissioners (BOCC) adopted the Aspen Daily News as its new official newspaper, displacing the Aspen Times, a daily that had served as the ski town’s paper of record since 1993. The Times had changed ownership at the beginning of the year, igniting several local controversies that apparently motivated the commissioners to make the change.
Making lemonade out of lemons in Florida
We have long feared the day the first state in the U.S. passes a law authorizing the government to post all or most public notice on government websites in lieu of newspapers. That day happened last month when the Florida House and Senate both voted largely along party lines to approve House Bill 7049.
Gov. Ron DeSantis is widely expected to sign the bill when it reaches his desk. The bill takes effect on Jan. 1, 2023.
[See a description of the key features of HB-7049 below this story.]
State press group touts multi-channel infrastructure
If the battle over public notice in state legislatures is framed as “newspapers vs the Internet,” newspapers lose.
The Louisiana Press Association (LPA) has taken that lesson to heart as it prepares for a 2022 legislative session that it’s nervous about. In an attractive two-page flyer that will serve as a leave-behind for meetings with legislators (see flyer below), LPA is taking a new messaging approach by touting its members’ digital prowess in delivering public notice advertising across multiple channels.
‘Devastating’ public notice bill debated in Pennsylvania
A hearing was held last week in Pennsylvania on House Bill 955, which would provide local governments in the state with the option to move their notices from paid-circulation newspapers to government websites or government-printed publications, newspaper websites, free-circulation newspapers, legal newspapers or shoppers.
The hearing was notable for the breadth of issues it addressed and the emphasis the Pennsylvania NewsMedia Association placed on the economic impact the bill would have on local newspapers in the state if it passes.
Raising the revenue issue: ‘Its not a subsidy. It’s a service’
After more than 57 years in print, the Los Alamos Monitor published its final issue on Sunday. When early last week it announced the decision to close, the New Mexico paper blamed its financial woes “in part to an unusual decision by local government to send its legal advertising to a free newspaper competitor at an apparent higher cost to taxpayers.”
The Monitor isn’t the only paper that has come to rely on revenue from public notice advertising for stability. As other forms of advertising have declined, the financial significance of newspaper notice has grown.