N.Y. Times spotlights local officials' use of public-notice ads as weapons, but doesn't explain that state laws differ

At a time when local newspapers rely on advertising revenue from publishing public notices required by law, more local governments are moving the notices from newspapers to punish them for "aggressive coverage of local politics," reports Emily Flitter of The New York Times. Richard Karpel, the executive director of the Public Notice Resource Center, told Flitter “It’s gotten worse over the years in terms of trying to use contracts and laws to lash out at newspapers.”

Flitter cites several examples, primarily The Reporter in Delaware County, New York, but does not make clear that the Empire State is one of many that allow public officials to use public-notice ads as a weapon. Many other states require the notices to be published in the newspaper with the largest proven circulation in the officials' jurisdiction, largely eliminating their discretion.

Lawyers told Flitter that it's unconstitutional for governments to punish anyone for their viewpoints, but "Sometimes, it is hard to prove that a local government is revoking a contract because of its unhappiness about a newspaper’s coverage. But other times, the rationale has been more or less explicit." Flitter cites the case of the Wet Mountain Tribune in Custer County, Colorado, which lost the county's public notices after it reported that its new public-health director had questionable educational credentials.

She doesn't note, as Northwestern University did in reporting on the case last year, that the ads went to "a nine-year-old partisan newspaper called the Sangre de Cristo Sentinel even though the Tribune submitted the low bid." But she has an update: "The paper’s publisher, Jordan Hedberg, sued the county in the fall for violating the paper’s First Amendment rights. A federal judge encouraged the two sides to negotiate. In December, the county agreed to reinstate The Tribune’s contract for four years and to pay the paper $50,000 in damages and lawyers’ fees."

UPDATE, July 11: "New York isn’t the only place where public officials sometimes seek to retaliate against those they perceive as enemies," the Public Notice Resource Center says. But the state’s folkways and traditions, along with its arcane and antiquated public notice statutes, often result in the chaotic administration of the law.