In a kind of follow-up to a previous story he reported 10 years ago on government subsidies for newspapers, former newspaper editor David Westphal took a close look earlier this month for the Poynter Institute at the state of public notice.

Although we’re never happy when public notice is framed as a government subsidy, as opposed to payment for service rendered, we concede reasonable people may disagree on that point. We also know from working with him as a source on the story that Westphal takes his responsibility to report the issue fairly and accurately quite seriously. Few journalists have covered public notice with more insight and intelligence than Westphal brings to this story.

Nevertheless, we do take issue with a lengthy section of the article focused on the proposition that “digital news startups have been agitating to get in the (public notice) game.” To be fair, even in that section of the story we learned things we didn’t know. We had no idea, for instance, that some local governments have published their notices on local news websites like the New Haven Independent and the Chester (Vermont) Telegraph. Those notices don’t satisfy legal requirements in any state, but they add a measure of transparency while providing financial support for local news organizations, which is commendable.

However, the article vastly overstates the notion that local news websites are a serious contender for future consideration as a legislatively mandated provider of public notice. Bills that would make local news websites eligible to publish notices have been introduced in only three states since 2017 — New York, Vermont and Virginia. None of the bills even made it out of committee.

By contrast, legislation that would move most public notice from newspapers to government websites has been introduced in 13 states this year alone. Similar bills were introduced in eleven states in 2018 and 2019, and in 26 states in 2017. And some of those bills even made it out of committee! Moreover, there are now laws in 14 states requiring newspapers that publish notices to also publish them on their own website and/or on a state press association statewide notice website.

So if digital news startups are “agitating” to get in the public notice game, they’re doing it wrong. Ben Smith and Liena Zagare can publish all the industry polemics they want, but until local news websites learn how to convince legislators of the righteousness of their cause, they’re just watching the game from the cheap seats.