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.
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.
Newspaper notice targeted in multiple states
Bills have been introduced in at least 15 states allowing or requiring official notice to be published on various platforms other than local newspapers. That’s significantly more legislative activity focused on replacing newspaper notice than last year and approaches the level of the previous election off-year of 2021.
Public notice award winners announced
Did you know some local governments in drought-ridden areas “seed” their clouds to increase precipitation? Many in Northern New Mexico were mystified on Nov. 4, 2021, when they read a public notice in the Taos News about an application filed with a state water commission for such a “weather control and precipitation enhancement” project that was to set to begin the following month.
News coverage of the notice and the local controversy it spawned earned the Taos News and veteran editor and reporter Rick Romancito first-place in this year’s Michael Kramer Public Notice Journalism Award competition. Sam Galski of the Standard-Speaker in Hazleton, Pa., won second-place. Two North Dakota papers — The Bismarck Tribune and 2020 public notice award winner The (Crosby) Journal — tied for third.
PNRC contest winners’ concerns often disregarded by officials
Small towns are different.
Take Crosby, North Dakota, population 1,300, for instance. It’s located in the upper northwest corner of the state, approximately 35 miles east of Montana and six miles south of the Canadian border. Many folks there have an extraordinary interest in the public notices published in the local paper, the Journal.
“Sometimes we get calls from people aware of something happening in town and wondering why a notice about it wasn’t published in the paper,” says Cecile Wehrman (pictured on left in photo above), the Journal’s editor and publisher.
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.
Nevada the Latest Public Notice Trouble Spot
Legislation that would authorize radio and television station websites to publish public notices in Nevada has become a serious threat to newspapers in the state, according to the Nevada Press Association (NPA). Senate Bill 218 would establish broadcaster websites as an alternative to newspapers for all legislatively mandated notices in the state, including foreclosure and other private-party notices.