Let's kill all the newspapers, let's kill them tonight

[JayFarrar]

Legal advertising, the classified advertising that local governments are legally required to run, might be in jeopardy in Georgia if a state legislator gets his way.

It’s often been theorized that small-town newspapers have the best hope for surviving the withering of the print media that’s occurring in every large city in America — including, of course, Atlanta. If that theory proves to be correct in Georgia, it will be despite the best efforts of state Sen. Cecil Staton, R-Macon
Last year, Staton introduced a bill — SB 391, to be exact — that would effectively deal a death blow to most small and mid-sized newspapers in Georgia by stripping them of lucrative legal ads. Described simply, his measure would shift legal ads and public notices from local papers onto a website authorized by the Secretary of State’s office.

Also worth noting that the Georgia senator also received a campaign contribution from a company that specializes in setting up Web sites for legal notices.

http://blogs.creativeloafing.com/freshloaf/2009/01/21/killing-whats-left-of-the-press/

 

[txsportsscribe]

this is not good. small papers around the country keep their doors open with those legal ads.

 

[zebracoy]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but aren't the legal notices in the paper so that people will actually see them?

If so, I don't know how that would work on a Web site that, I guarantee, I would never visit otherwise.

 

[JayFarrar]

At this point you can't also notarize a web page, you can notarize a legal ad.
That makes something of a difference.
Legal ads provide the backbone of most small and even medium sized papers.
You take that away, you effectively kill most of them off.
This is bad, bad and bad.

 

[mitch cumstein]

Same thing is going on in Arizona.

 

[Mediator]

I hate to say this, but with readership dropping, those ads don't really reach the entire community anymore by being in the paper. And, saying that, I have to go cry again.

 

[DanOregon]

It troubles me that I agree with the law. The Internet is free, most newspapers are not. And if the argument is to notify the public in the most effective way, wouldn't a website, that could be searched by the public daily, weekly, monthly or whenever, be a more effective tool to comply with requirement for public notification and accessibility?

 

[Frank_Ridgeway]

Newspapers also have gouged local government on these for decades -- it was usually the highest cost per inch of any advertising in the paper, although I'm not sure that's still true since papers began selling A-1 ads. This is very bad for newspapers, but I can't say I blame the local and state governments for wanting to stop the gravy train.

 

[forever_town]

Same thing is going on in Arizona.

Same thing happened in Maryland last year. It'll probably happen again this year.

 

[Starman]

Big shocker, it's the Republicans behind this campaign. Whoda' thunk it. : :

 

[JayFarrar]

It troubles me that I agree with the law. The Internet is free, most newspapers are not. And if the argument is to notify the public in the most effective way, wouldn't a website, that could be searched by the public daily, weekly, monthly or whenever, be a more effective tool to comply with requirement for public notification and accessibility?

The internet is not really free though.
You need a computer to access the web, you need a service provider to get you there.
In some cases, yes you can go to a library and use its free computer, assuming they have one, and its free internet, assuming they have that as well, to access the web site.
Then, once you get there, you need to know how to access the information to find what you are looking for.
It also assumes you have the computer skills to do what you need to do.
If paid legals die, that will kill off all the smaller papers.

 

[Editude]

Computers aren't free, free weekend minutes aren't free, TV programming isn't free; it's the pervasive creep of monthly charges to live a 21st-century life.