Many years ago, I looked into starting my own newspaper, but I found that I couldn't compete with established papers (and usually their large companies) because my startup would not qualify for legal ads for about the first year.
Now, the state legislature is looking at taking those legal ads — what some in the news industry call the "bread and butter" of advertising revenue — away from all newspapers.
House Bill 1488 was introduced Tuesday and is in a committee. The bill would strip the requirement that governments run legal notices in the newspapers and create an internet calendar where notices are run for free. That's the equivalent of what Craigslist did to personal ads for newspapers and could mean the loss of thousands and thousands of dollars for Arkansas newspapers.
In contrast, should the bill pass, city, county and state governments stand to save, proponents say. Poynter has pointed out a mid-sized city could save $20,000 by not having to pay for the ads.
But at what cost to the community and community newspapers? Do we as a community care that revenue will be taken away from newspapers?
On one side, newspapers are typically businesses, not nonprofits. The current law could be seen as favoring one industry — and individually, the age of businesses in that industry — over others. On the other side, newspapers are a community service and the industry is struggling financially. The Arkansas Democrat-Gazette laid off several reporters and photographers just last year. Taking away more revenue now could cripple community service newspapers traditionally provide.
Other states have looked at or are doing the same thing as Arkansas. This year, Arizona and Texas are looking at similar proposals to move legal ads online. Arkansas is just the most recent state to join a growing number of states looking to save money by cutting newspapers.
But if these proposals pass, will the Fourth Estate crumble? What, if anything, will happen to the checks and balances newspapers provide in Arkansas?
Comments (9)
Add commentWOW
I wonder on a yearly basis if there are more than 10's of people that read the legal notices in the Log Cabin and say HEY I need to check on that.
Bill is long
The bill encompasses a lot of required legal ads. I'm sure some of them are really well read. For example, foreclosures.
It's about much more than revenue
A main question is maintaining the original intent to push transparency and promote the actions of government more than the revenue stream: Giving notice to the public rather than simply housing the documents.
Some questions to be tackled may be: Is the infrastructure and the cost structure for digital notices in place to maintain consistency and ease of use; Will local governments proactively notify the community regarding information updates and corrections; Will local governments bury information behind searches and time-consuming website paging (will the postings by technologically modern and available on all web browsers); Is this an expedient cost-saving on one side that is a cost increase in another area (maintenance, constant upgrades and more); Currently, local newspaper archives also kept at local libraries serve as a historical record on government... Will government maintain an archive for years to come that will allow inspection?
Some newspapers charge a pretty low rate that simply offset costs, ink and paper associated. That may not be true for small newspapers where the revenue may be a bigger quotient and it may be a main source of content. That aside...
The move to digital-only gov't notices will happen some day, I believe. It's just too soon at this juncture and much more digital adoption by the audience is needed before this move is a best practice.
Well.........
How about conservatives return name calling to liberals on the LCD? Seems fair enough to me.
This is another attempt by the right wing
to hide information in locations only they will know. They realize this will put a strain on newspapers and help put an end to the "liberal media" machine, as they so often complain about. The general assembly is working on the Republican national agenda, not the people's agenda, as is evidenced by the atrocious bills they have already been pushing. Sic Semper Tyrannis - the Republicants must be unseated in 2014.
Well...............
Good luck read. Things are going the other way in AR. Better move to Canada.
"The state congress is
"The state congress is working on the Republican national agenda, not the people's agenda, as is evidenced by the atrocious bills they have already been pushing".
reader, I did not know that Arkansas had a Congress.
Corrected - thanks
.
Poynter.
I love that you read Poynter. It's one of my favorite online resources.
Right wing hiding information?
So, providing information to the public on a website instead of using tax dollars for print advertising is political? I refrain from using the word free as Ms. Sims did as nothing is free. Everything costs something. I am operating under the assumption that the website would be fewer tax dollars than the print advertising. Mr. English may very well have a point in that regard.
$20,000 may not sound like much when viewed in the context of a city's yearly budget but every little bit helps. Enough trimming here and there and pretty soon we might be talking about real money.
On second thought, this is the same us against them characterization that is the hallmark of any good liberal argument so the "logic" does at least seem consistent. I use the term "logic" here with the same hesitation as the word "free" earlier because the words logic and liberal have nothing in common save for some letters.