THIS ARTICLE IS COMMENTARY AND PUBLISHED IN OUR EDITORIAL SECTION.
Online-only news sites give local agencies more flexibility and much greater reach; amended law helps sustain emerging local media
By Randy Arrington, publisher
With less than one-third of Americans now getting their news from a print newspaper, the Virginia General Assembly this past winter adopted the first legislation in the country to allow Public Notices to be published on the pages of online-only local news sites, in lieu of the long-mandated pages of actual print. On Monday, July 22, Page Valley News became the first online-only news site in Virginia to take advantage of the amended state law — believed by many to be the “game changer” needed to help community-based digital media in its efforts to stave off news deserts and fill the information voids left by fading print media.
The digital transition in local media really kicked into high gear around 2008-09, as the “Great Recession” crossed paths with the introduction of the IPhone. Google and Facebook began dominating digital advertising (along with YouTube and later Amazon). Newspapers, who were still making high margins on their print products, were slow to fully embrace the digital world. While print newspapers in the U.S. gained about $3 billion from digital advertising from 2004-2014 — they lost about $30 billion in print advertising during the same time period. Business decisions made by the corporate entities buying up newspaper groups were forever changed, while at the same time… the habits of readers were headed in an irreversible direction as well.
The area of Public Notices became a battleground issue within the industry between the emerging digital side and the traditional print side. State laws all across the country have always mandated that all Notices of petitions for public hearings, adoptions, divorces, ABC permits, Request For Proposals, etc.… must be published in a print newspaper. As the presence of independent digital-only media began to grow, the print mandate seemed to be less relevant, and possibly an unfair monopoly for newspapers.
Dozens of online-only news sites covering small communities have popped up all across the commonwealth, and all across the country in just the past few years. That trend will continue, as the increasing cost of producing print products continues to put pressure on corporate owners and hedge funds who are simply squeezing the last bit of value out of brand names before giving up all together… at least on print.
After several years of direct and effective defiance to the expansion of Public Notice law and publication, the Virginia Press Association was willing to come to the negotiating table during the winter because they saw a growing group of online publishers beginning to organize, a statewide effort to bring broadband to underserved areas, the increasing importance of digital communication following the COVID-19 pandemic, and the fact that within a given amount of time…we would all be online publishers.
“Virginia is the first state to allow online-only news publications like yours to qualify to publish notices that satisfy statutory requirements,” Richard Karpel, executive director of the Public Notice Center in Baltimore, replied last week to a direct inquiry from PVN.
Others states, specifically Oregon, have stated that Virginia’s claim of being first in this endeavor is invalid. However, as Karpel exlained, the discrepancy is often due to the details within each piece of legislation in each state.
“We didn’t say Virginia was ‘the first state to publish online-only public notices’ because the term ‘online-only public notices’ is imprecise,” Karpel stated. “The confusion probably arises from the fact that legislation is generally pretty complicated and therefore is difficult to categorize and compare from one state to the next.”
After Oregon disputed Virginia’s claim back in April, a podcast on the subject following Governor Glen Youngkin’s signing of the bill was canceled by Editor & Publisher magazine. PVN was invited to participate in that podcast.
“It has come to our attention from some state association managers that this curated content that we published may have been inaccurate. That being said, this story has been assigned to our editorial team to do a much more in-depth follow-up as part of our exclusive reporting,” reads an email from E&P publisher Mike Blinder. “In the meantime, I am cancelling this interview until E&P moves this from an industry news press release we simply added to our #NewsMedia Headlines content area, to exclusive reporting.”
Despite the dispute… Karpel feels confident that Virginia is the first in doing what it has done.
“…Oregon was definitely not the first state to authorize news websites to publish notices,” he stated to PVN. “What I can tell you for certain is that PNRC is the only organization that reads and analyzes public notice legislation in all 50 states.”
To the average reader, this all probably seems like “inside baseball”, where no one really cares except the people directly effected. However, this is one of those small moments within community journalism — especially in rural areas — which will have a domino effect on everything that comes after it… the butterfly that causes the tsunami, if you will.
While helping sustain small, local digital outlets trying to fill a news void, the amended state code could very well lead to the closure of some small print publications. For many of these small, rural weeklies, Public Notices have taken on a much larger role in revenues, with the rapid descent of circulation, subscriptions, classifieds and local advertising. On the other side of the coin, the next generation of local news on digital platforms has found a new way to potentially survive financially.
One hope is that broader access to Public Notices will inspire greater participation in local government — something clearly accomplished by the live streaming of local government meetings. The Town of Luray, who placed PVN’s first Public Notice last week, has seen its livestream audience for some meetings grow to well over 500 … while its physical meeting room holds well under 100. The same could be said for the Page County School Board and the Page County Board of Supervisors. Even when the school board moves meetings to high school auditoriums to accommodate larger crowds, they typically have more viewers online than they do in person.
Without a change in the Virginia state code, and a continued reliance on the dying medium of print, the future of community journalism — especially in rural areas — would be in much greater jeopardy. Many communities would — and many still may — learn first-hand what the term “news desert” means, and what effects it can have on potential political corruption or the general mishandling of funds as more of the people’s business is conducted in the dark.
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