How important are Public Notices in the print media? Should they go the way of the dinosaurs, or should the papers keep getting them (and the revenue for printing them)?
No doubt that the papers love the revenue. And some papers, perhaps in the smaller towns, might live or die on that revenue. So they are beating their chests and saying things like Bob Best of the Sullivan News-Progress (Sullivan, Ill. is in Moultrie County (about 50 mi. SW of Champaign)) is saying, "Our readers are adamant about getting their local news, and those kinds of notices are strictly local."
Some Public Notices about City, County and Township meetings are important, especially if tax questions and acquisitions are planned.
Other Public Notices, such as the numerous property sales and foreclosures, are not so important to the thousands of readers of print media. They are legally important, but couldn't they be substantially shortened? Take a look at the paper someday. Columns and columns of long notices, all repetitive with the same boring language, describing in great details in which quadrant of which section of which whatever a piece of land is located. Only a surveyor or the assessor will know where it is from that description. How about 123 A Street in such-and-such a town, if it is non-rural?
And the claim that "a third of Americans do not have Internet"? Maybe 1/3 of Americans are under age 18. Sure, there are a lot of people without the internet. What would be interesting to know is an estimate of the percentage of people with a likely need-to-know about Public Meetings and other matters requiring Public Notice who don't have the internet.
Some Public Notices are essential and should be published in the local newspaper. Others need no such publication, except that someone decided their publication was legally necessary.
Did I need to acquire an Assumed Name Registration for the Woodstock Advocate? That cost was only $5. But then I had to blow $90 to have it published locally for three weeks. That, my friends, was a waste of my money. My lawyer said it "probably" wasn't necessary, but I decided not to chance it.
You never know who is interested…
3 months ago
2 comments:
"1/3 of Americans don't have internet access."
I wonder what percentage of Americans do not subscribe or read newspapers any longer?
sixcedars, thanks for your comment.
It would be interesting to see the stats in readership over the past ten years.
I've heard that some papers continue to print excessive numbers of papers, so that they can claim high numbers to advertisers and potential advertisers.
Even libraries are touting electronic reading. That bodes ill for book publishers. I wonder what the Library of the Future will look like.
Will a home library in 50 years just have a Kindle on a shelf and no books?
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