Newspapers in Missouri are going on the offensive in their battle to save public notice in their state.
Fighting separate bills that would move all government and foreclosure notice in the state from newspapers to government and law-firm websites, the Missouri Press Association (MPA) threw its support behind Senate Bill 515, introduced last week on the final day for filing new legislation in Jefferson City. SB 515 would require newspapers in the state that publish notices to also post them on MPA’s statewide public notice site. It would also limit rates by requiring newspapers to include volume or repeat-buyer discounts, and by mandating lower prices for “second and successive insertions”.
City pulls notices after critical coverage
A New York Times story reports on a move by the Garden City, N.Y. village board to take public notices out of a local newspaper and start running them in a smaller competitor.
It’s the latest attempt by government officials to use economic pressure to try to sway coverage.
Meg Morgan Norris, editor and publisher of the 8,300-circulation Garden City News, has been critical of the village board’s handling of the redevelopment of a local landmark.
In addition to cutting the notices, the village board also has threatened to stop sending news items like calendar listings and senior columns to the News.
Missouri, Indiana face high-stakes battles
As the new year dawned and state legislatures reconvened in January, two press associations in the Midwest found themselves in an existential battle to save newspaper notice in their states. The Missouri Press Association (MPA) and the Hoosier State Press Association (HSPA) are fighting several bills with serious prospects for passage that would move government and foreclosure notices to the web.
Alert reader helps save a family farm
Historical marker in Red Level, Ala.
(Photo by Lee Peacock)
For some people, reading public notices in the local newspaper is a matter of habit — and sometimes a matter of saving a family farm.
Lindel Foshee gets five newspapers at the home in Red Level, Ala., where she lives with her husband, Booster. She got in the habit of reading public notices during the years they ran the Peoples Bank of Red Level.
Poor Customer Service Sabotages Newspaper Notice
When the Air Quality Division of the Indiana Department of Environmental Management (IDEM) announced a proposal last year to move all of its public notice advertising from newspapers to its own website, its motivation for doing so was clear: Bureaucratic efficiency.
“(IDEM’s) proposal never even bothers to claim e-notice will reach more Indiana citizens,” PNRC noted in the comments we filed opposing the plan. “It focuses instead on cost, convenience and expedience. Those are all worthy goals. Unfortunately, none are the primary purpose of public notice laws.”
The Year in Public Notice Legislation
Despite a bit of early angst in a few states, 2018 ended up being a relatively benign year for public notice.
PNRC has tracked about 160 separate public notice bills this year, just a bit more than in 2017. Only 24 were enacted into law and most were vanishingly minor. As is generally the case with minor public notice legislation, almost all of the notice changes were incidental to the primary focus of the legislation. For example, a bill in New Jersey added several new instances of both newspaper and government website notice in connection with public-private partnership agreements for certain building and highway infrastructure projects.
PNRC, NNA Meet With Federal Agency to Discuss Proposal
PNRC Executive Director Richard Karpel met last month with Federal Communications Commission (FCC) officials to urge the agency to abandon its proposal to eliminate rules requiring broadcasters to publish notices in local newspapers when they file license applications with the Commission. National Newspaper Association (NNA) general counsel Tonda Rush joined him at the meeting.
The FCC proposal, which was filed in October 2017, is open-ended. Potential outcomes range from elimination of all public notice requirements — the preference of the broadcasters’ association — to maintenance of the existing rules. However, dismissive comments expressed by FCC Chairman Ajit Pai and a fellow commissioner don’t bode well for their prospects.
Voters Go to the Polls to Select Official Newspapers in N.D.
See the post-election postscript at the end of this post. 
If we had a category in our annual Public Notice Journalism Contest for best lede, Jack Dura of the Bismarck Tribune would probably win with this one: “Races for official county newspaper don’t usually headline election years, but a few papers around North Dakota could flip in this cycle.”
It turns out that in North Dakota, when a county has at least two newspapers local voters often get to decide which one is designated to serve as the official publisher of notice. It appears to be the only state that designates official newspapers by ballot.
Newspaper Notice Helps Save County’s Oldest Grave
Theophilus Hunter was a big deal in Wake County, North Carolina, and in Raleigh, the county seat. A Revolutionary War leader who owned a popular lodge in the area and held official posts in both the city and county, Hunter is considered a local founding father by some residents. When he died in 1798, he was buried in an area that is now close to the N.C. State University campus.
It will remain there for now, along with the 17 unmarked graves, as a result of a public notice published in Raleigh’s News & Observer.
Newspaper Notice Saves County “Tens of Thousands of Dollars”
CVS Caremark recently charged Wapello County, Iowa, $198.22 for a bottle of generic antipsychotic pills dispensed by a local pharmacy. CVS reimbursed the pharmacy just $5.73 for the pills.
We know about this enormous markup because one of the owners of the pharmacy, Mark Frahm, read a public notice in the local Ottumwa Courier and did some sleuthing. Frahm’s investigation ultimately had a significant impact that continues to reverberate. Locally, it led the county jail to drop CVS as its pharmacy benefit manager (PBM) and purchase meds directly from Frahm’s South Side Drug. The move is “expected to save the county tens of thousands of dollars,” according to the Courier.