Since the start of the 2015 North Carolina General Assembly we have seen 2 award winning head cheerleaders for the N.C. Press Association file bills in both houses to keep the Monopoly Paid Paper public notice laws stay the way they have been on the books since 1940's. Here is the post about this CLICKHERE
It is always great to see the N.C. Press Association come out with talking points for their constituents to editorialize in their own papers about this bill and how it is not about the money but we all know it is all about the money.For example here are some links to what I have been talking about
The Robesonian HERE
Hendersonville Lightning HERE
but the best post this past week from the N.C. Press Association Public Notice Monopoly goes to the Richmond County Daily Journal with a editorial from March 7, 2015 titled OUR VIEW: McInnis shows leadership on public notices CLICKHERE
Here is what was said in editorial
"The latest U.S. Census Bureau figures estimate that roughly a fifth of North Carolinians don’t have home Internet access. Taking legals out of the local newspaper would leave about 2 million Tar Heels in the dark."
So let's take what was said and turn it upside down for a minute. the census bureau is stating that 80% of North Carolinians have access to the internet. But we need to still have a state law that makes cities and counties have to spend money to publish in a dwindling customer base called a paid paper maybe only getting to 20% of the population in North Carolina as a yearly subscriber to a paid paper in their community.
This public notice law was put into the books on the 1940's well before the computer or the internet ever came into existence. Now in 2015 we have according to the Census Bureau 80% of population have home internet access in North Carolina. Let's save time and money and allow cities and counties all over the state of North Carolina use their own web sites to publish public notices.
It would be great to see our state representatives understand that wasting taxpayer money with a state law to a dwindling customer base is not the way public notices need to be delivered in the State of North Carolina just ask the triad business journal HERE with a title"Triad daily newspapers see continued circulation declines". they had that to report last year.
Public Notice laws should be the best way to get your message out to the biggest percentage of the population and as we see from the Census Bureau it is through the internet just like classifieds have practically left the papers for Craiglist. This is 2015 let's act like we know that a computer was invented and time to update these laws to allow this information to be made available online and not in a Paid Paper.
2 comments:
The 20 percent who don't use the internet are mostly older folks...you know, the ones who are more likely to attend city council meetings and more likely to vote. Let's be sure to cut off our most active and engaged citizens. We can claim we're reaching more people online, but you and i both know most twentysomething and thirtysomething citizens could give a rip about a public notice. Let's get rid of those awful newspapers with their pesky facts and let the good ol' boys take care of things in smoke-filled rooms with no public opposition. You know, the way it should be!
Who ever reads public notices in papers anymore it is hidden in back of paper, Seldom read , in a font you can barely read.
This is not about denying grandma publc notices , if local government wants to set up a robo call on public notices to grandma they could do it far cheaper than having a state law that mandates you waste taxpayers money on a dwindling base of subscribers
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