The status of newspaper notice in New Jersey was thrown into uncertainty when Advance Publications announced on Oct. 30 that early next year it plans to close a production facility and the print editions of several significant newspapers in the state, including the state’s largest paper, the Star-Ledger.
Although it isn’t clear how many local government units were using the three daily papers and one weekly newspaper that will cease publication in the wake of Advance’s announcement, the scale of the closure’s impact began to come into focus when rural Warren County filed a lawsuit seeking a new outlet for its notices. Warren County has been publishing its notices in the Star-Ledger even though the paper is based in Newark, which is located two counties and 63 miles from the county seat.
Models for the future of public notice?
State legislatures have grown increasingly comfortable with the concept of transitioning public notice from printed newspapers to their digital versions. Nine states considered legislation in 2023 allowing some or all notices published in newspapers to be posted instead on newspaper websites. Eight states — including four new ones — have considered similar or identical bills in 2024.
More evidence for the trend: Legislation allowing local news websites or “online-only newspapers” to serve as public notice alternatives to newspapers have been introduced in six states this year. Several other states have considered or passed bills authorizing newspapers’ e-editions to do the same.
California governor vetoes public notice bill
California Governor Gavin Newsom this weekend vetoed a public notice bill that was supported by the California Newspaper Publishers Association (CNPA) and passed both houses of the legislature by wide margins. Like legislation that has already been approved in 20 other states, Assembly Bill 2095 would have required official newspapers to ensure that notices published in their print editions would also be posted free of charge on their own website and on their press associations’ statewide public notice site.
In a statement issued Saturday, Newsom said he vetoed AB-2095 because he was concerned it “may require the state’s small community newspapers to hire additional personnel to upload notices and/or to pay for software tools to manage these uploads
Press association touts “agreeable solution” on notices
West Virginia state Senator Jack David Woodrum (photo on left) told attendees at the West Virginia Press Association (WVPA) convention last month that he may introduce a bill that would reduce fees for papers in the state that fail to publish notices on their own website and on WVPA’s statewide public notice site, according to a report on WVPA’s member website. The legislation wouldn’t change current laws requiring most notices in the state to be published in local newspapers.
Maryland governor vetoes public notice bill, calls independent media ‘vital public interest’
As the Maryland-Delaware-DC Press Association (MDDC) had urged him to, Maryland Gov. Wes Moore last month vetoed House Bill 1258, which would have required Registers of Wills in each county to publish estate notices on a government website instead of local newspapers. The bill passed unanimously in both houses of the state legislature before it was vetoed.
In his extraordinarily frank veto letter, the governor acknowledged that existing notice requirements “present a financial burden on local and state governments as well as individual citizens.” But he argued that rapidly eliminating a significant source of advertising revenue like probate notices would endanger local newspapers, the survival of which he called “a vital public interest.”
Press groups in Minn., Louisiana turn the tide
April saw an uptick in legislative activity surrounding public notice issues as many states approached the date they’re scheduled to adjourn. Press groups in Minnesota and Louisiana found themselves in scramble mode as public notice bills they opposed began moving. Although neither situation has been completely resolved, they appear to be headed in the right direction for residents of each state who care about government transparency.
- Minnesota
Indiana adopts digital-newspaper notice
Indiana Gov. Eric Holcomb signed three bills last month that will impact the state’s public notice laws. When it takes effect on July 1, the most significant bill will make Indiana the first state to authorize government units to publish primary notice on some newspaper websites or e-editions.
House Bill 1204, which passed both the House and Senate unanimously, allows local governments and state agencies to circumvent the print editions of most newspapers by posting notices in one of their digital products as an alternative. However, the bill only applies to newspapers that distribute fewer than four editions per week; print will remain the exclusive means for government notice in papers that are published more frequently.
February brings more evidence of shift to newspaper websites
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.
News websites supplanting government sites as alternative source of notice?
Public notice legislation introduced so far in 2024 suggests state legislatures are growing increasingly comfortable having news websites serve as an alternative source of official notice. And that comfort seems to have cooled their ardor for moving notices from newspapers to government websites.
As of the end of last week, new legislation authorizing local news websites or newspaper websites to provide statutory notice in lieu of print had been introduced in at least six states, while bills sanctioning the move from print newspapers to government websites had been introduced in only two states — and one of them is already dead.
Public notice year in review
2023 was a lot like 2022: A pretty good year marred primarily by the vote of a GOP-dominated state legislature to allow some local governments to publish notice on their own websites in lieu of local newspapers. Last year it was Florida, this year Ohio.
Twenty-one states saw bills in 2023 that would have significantly curtailed newspaper notice, a number that is at the high end of the normal range for these kinds of bills. The only one to pass was Ohio HB-33.