Newspapers' battle to keep legal-notice ads may heat up as governments look for ways to save

The declining economy will increase local and state governments' efforts to save money by putting required public notices on government Web sites instead of paying to put them in local newspapers, Jack Murphy, executive director of the Maryland-Delaware-District of Columbia Press Association reports from last month's meeting of Newspaper Association Managers.

Legal ads can be a major source of revenue for rural newspapers. Many state press associations have created Web sites on which newspapers can post legals, to reach audiences that may not be reached by print advertising. John Fearing, the assistant director of the Arizona Newspaper Association, said newspapers should check town records to determine how much money was being spent on newspaper advertising versus other expenses, such as travel, and point out surveys showing that citizens do read printed legals.

Fearing "said in the last legislative session his state was facing the perfect storm of public-notice threats, with a growing complaint by lawmakers that newspapers are antiquated media, every government trying to cut spending, and a legislature sympathetic to the problems of local governments," Murphy writes. "He said the key to defusing the threat was getting publishers of his member newspapers active in the fight, because lawmakers still respond to direct pleas from constituents." (Read more)