Last month provided additional confirmation that state legislatures are increasingly looking to newspaper websites rather than government sites to supplement and perhaps eventually serve as an alternative to printed newspapers as the primary medium for public notice. Bills illustrating that trend moved closer to becoming law in both Indiana and Iowa.
Indiana
The tenor of public notice legislation has shifted in Indiana. At the start of 2023 it was one of the two or three states that seemed most likely to abandon newspapers in favor of government websites. Yesterday the legislature approved a bill that could instead serve as a gateway to an eventual migration to newspaper websites.
Column to close statewide-website business
About a dozen press associations received a bit of a surprise last week when one of the two major vendors of statewide public-notice websites announced it was “sunsetting” that part of its business. In the release announcing its decision, Column said it was making the change to focus on its public notice platform for publishers, which it says “has grown considerably … (o)ver the past year.”
Column is giving its press-association clients plenty of time to migrate to a new service; they have until May 31, 2024, to find a new vendor. The company recommended that its clients transition to the other major statewide public-notice website vendor — the Illinois Press Association — which Column called “the best alternative provider of public notice website hosting.”
Ohio enacts law curtailing newspaper notice
This story was originally published on Sept. 25 and was updated on Oct. 3. New material is italicized.
Last month, we reported that through the end of the summer there were no states that had approved legislation significantly altering their public notice laws. We were wrong.
Unbeknownst to most in the newspaper business, two months earlier Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine had signed into law measures buried within the legislature’s 6,198-page budget bill that will bring sweeping changes to the state’s public notice regime. DeWine signed the bill less than a week after it passed both the GOP-dominated state House and Senate by wide margins on June 30.
Louisiana begins transition to newspaper websites
Last week, Louisiana became the first state to pass a law that will eventually make newspaper websites the primary platform for public notice. HB-650 requires local governments to post their notices on official newspaper websites beginning in 2027. They’ll also be required to publish print notices describing the subject matter and location of the online notices, but — in a reversal of present custom — the print ads will be free and the online notices will be the ads they pay for.
HB-650 passed both houses unanimously and is expected to be signed by Gov. Jon Bel Edwards when it reaches his desk.
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.
A survey of statewide public notice websites
Statewide public notice websites sponsored by the newspaper industry have been the focus of major change in the last few years. Many states enacted new laws requiring notices to be published on the sites and about two dozen state press groups have switched website vendors.
The vendor shift has been driven by the growing adoption of online ad-entry systems and the withdrawal from the market of the first vendor to license a web-based platform to power the websites.