Anyone who once read Michael Foreman’s children’s book Fortunately, Unfortunately can relate to the news about public notices gathered by the Public Notice Resource Center (PNRC) in 2024.
In the book that helps children learn the two words, a child gets himself in and out of a variety of tricky situations. Unfortunately, he falls out of a plane but fortunately opens a parachute that unfortunately has a hole in it. Fortunately he lands on a pile of hay that unfortunately contains a pitchfork…and so on.
This year, the news about public notice battles in state legislatures has also lurched from sudden death to resurrection, from serious legislative losses to significant wins by judicial fiat or gubernatorial veto.
Take the latest public notices scuffle in Wichita, Ka. Unfortunately, the city approved an ordinance making its own website the official destination of record for public notices. Fortunately, a provision requires publication in a secondary print media. This makes Wichita the fifth city to bring public notices in-house and replace local newspapers in the past year.
Fortunately, Connecticut newspapers fared better when a case running through the judicial system since 2019 ended up with the state Supreme Court ruling in favor of a local newspaper. The tiny borough of Fenwick, with just 81 homes, had published public notices via The Middletown Press, a Hearst newspaper 30 miles away. Now, the court said, it still can. Unfortunately, an appeal of the verdict has been filed, but those rarely succeed, PNRC said.
Unfortunately the state legislature in Maryland passed a bill to move public notice requirements to county websites. Fortunately, Maryland governor, Wes Moore also vetoed the bill.
Unfortunately, with statewide online networks key to preserving publication requirements in newspapers, many state press associations were unceremoniously abandoned by software provider for public notices, Column, in May. Fortunately, iPublish Media Solution’s State Public Notice Marketplace overcame the gap with superior technology and world-class customer service, launching the California Public Notice Marketplace for the California News Publishers Association, (CNPA) in June.
Fortunately, an Indiana bill that supports publication of state public notices on newspaper websites and e-editions passed in February and will take effect in July, in a big shift for a state legislature once skeptical of newspaper requirements. The charge for e-editions can sometimes be the same as print, is this the start of a trend?
PNRC also reported that state legislatures are “growing increasingly comfortable” with shifting public notices to news websites and e-editions, and fortunately “that comfort seems to have cooled their ardor for moving notices from newspapers to government websites.”
Unfortunately political threats will continue, but fortunately, better technology and cultivation of relationships with local politicians will allow newspapers to continue to write a happy ending.
The rest of this year may continue to be a rocky road but, we think with all our commitments, another successful journey for newspaper public notices is possible in other states.