Rural Texas legislators who opposed governor's push for school vouchers fall to big-spending campaign against them

Texas House roll call board (Texas Tribune/Eddie Gasper)

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott and his Republican allies succeeded in purging at least seven members from the state House in Tuesday's primary elections. Their main targets were rural Republicans who helped defeat Abbott's legislation that would have provided taxpayer support for private education. Now the House will "become more receptive to school vouchers," report Zach Despart and Renzo Downey of the Texas Tribune. But "It was not clear on Tuesday if that effort had paid off," writes David Goodman, Texas bureau chief of The New York Times. Some race are in runoffs.

Abbott's campaign was funded by huge contributions from right-wing interests inside Texas and out of it. Former president Donald Trump and Lt. Gov, Dan Patrick "endorsed challengers in dozens of races citing the incumbents’ disloyalty to the party," the Tribune reports.

The anti-voucher incumbents were targets of heavy advertising that put them in "Wanted" posters and called them "liberals" but rarely if ever mentioned the school issue. One of them, Rep. Glenn Rogers, said in a column in The Community News of Aledo that "Abbott has defiled the Office of Governor by creating and repeating blatant lies about me and my House colleagues, those who took a stand for our public schools. I stood by the governor on all his legislative priorities but just one, school vouchers. For just one disagreement, and for a $6 million check from Jeff Yass, a Pennsylvanian TikTok investor, and voucher vendor, Abbott went scorched earth against rural Texas and the representatives who did their jobs -- representing their districts."

Before the election, The Community News published an interview with Rogers, and said it had twice given opponent Michael Olcott the same opportunity but received no response. The weekly didn't endorse in the race, but in a Feb. 21 column, Editor-Publisher Randy Keck said anti-Rogers mailers lied about his voting record. "You may be reading this thinking I am advocating to vote for Rogers, but I’m not," he wrote. "You should vote based on who you think would best represent you in the Texas House of Representatives. But you should not vote based on the character assassination of a good man."

Many state lawmakers attempted to curtail public notices in newspapers in 2023, but only one state made the switch

The past year was considered “pretty good” for protecting public notices in newspapers, with one notable exception, according to a report in Public Notice Monthly, a service of the Public Notice Resource Center.

“Twenty-one states saw bills in 2023 that would have significantly curtailed newspaper notice, a number that is at the high end of the normal range for these kinds of bills. The only one to pass was Ohio HB-33,” according to the report. “In total, PNRC tracked about 200 bills that had the potential to affect public notice; 50 were signed into law. Most of these new statutes will have little impact, equally divided between those that will have a marginally positive effect on government transparency and those that will slightly enhance official secrecy.”

Here is the PNRC report for 2023:

"The only consequential new laws enacted last year are briefly summarized below in roughly descending order of their impact. Aside from the bill in Ohio, all were supported by the newspaper industry.

1. Louisiana HB-650 -- This is the first statute requiring notice to be posted on newspaper websites instead of print newspapers, with the transition from hard copy to electronic set to commence in 2027. HB-650 also simplifies and standardizes the state’s fee structure, and requires official newspapers to have a website and post notices on it — free of charge until 2027 — and on the LPA statewide site.

2. Ohio HB-33 -- Inserted into the annual budget bill at the last minute, this new law made Ohio the second state to allow some local governments (i.e., municipalities, but not counties, villages or townships) to post many or most of their notices on their own website and social media feed instead of publishing them in a local newspaper or legal journal. Inexplicably, HB-33 also gave municipalities the option to publish notice on the Ohio News Media Association’s statewide public notice website free of charge. Moreover, the bill eliminated or reduced newspaper publication of several specific types of notices at all levels of government, including those relating to bids, delinquent taxes and the environment.

ONMA and newspaper publishers in the Buckeye State now face the challenge of preventing the new law from spreading to other levels of government. Unfortunately, the potential metastization has already begun with the introduction last month of HB-315, which would allow townships to completely abandon newspaper notice.

3. North Dakota HB-1197 and Oregon HB-3167 -- These are the first statutes allowing public notice ads to be published in the e-editions of official newspapers instead of print. Oregon HB-3167 additionally authorizes otherwise non-qualifying papers to provide local notice for up to 12 months in jurisdictions temporarily lacking an official newspaper. It also adds content standards to the public notice law requiring “consistent, regular coverage of local news” and at least 25 percent of “total news content” to be “locally and originally composed”.

4. Georgia HB-254 -- This one also adds a content standard (i.e., minimum paid circulation of 100) while temporarily expanding eligibility to publish notice to free-circulation newspapers when there are no papers in a county that meet the paid-circulation requirement. Most importantly for papers in Georgia, HB-254 increases publication fees by 50 percent — the state’s first fee increase in about 25 years. The bill also establishes a process by which posting a notice on a newspaper or government website, and Georgia Press Association’s statewide site, cures the failure of a print newspaper to publish timely notice submitted by a county or municipality.

5. Texas SB-943 -- Bills requiring newspapers that publish print notices to also post those notices on their own website and their press association’s statewide public notice site were introduced in four states this year. This is the only one that was approved, making Texas the nineteenth state to enact such a law.

"Every new year now poses major challenges for the future of public notice and 2024 is likely to follow that pattern. Nevertheless, newspaper notice will survive for years to come if newspapers provide effective notice to their communities and adequate customer service to their government clients, and if more publishers learn to advocate on their own behalf directly with public officials."

Democracy depends on newspapers, and the big threat is outside metro areas, newspaper chain executive warns

Bill Ketter with his Wells Key award from SPJ and fellow CNHI
executives Matt Gray, left, and Jim Zachary (Photo by Al Cross)

By Al Cross

Director emeritus, Institute for Rural Journalism, University of Kentucky

LAS VEGAS, Nev. – The future of democracy depends on newspapers, and “The greatest threat to democracy is in the small towns and cities of America,” the top news executive of one of the country's largest newspaper chains said Saturday in accepting the Society of Professional Journalists’ top award.

William Ketter, CNHI’s senior vice president for news, was awarded the Wells Key for service to SPJ, of which he has been a member for 62 years, since he was a student at the University of North Dakota.

“Newspapers and democracy go hand in glove,” said Ketter, who guided the Lawrence Eagle-Tribune of Massachusetts to the 2003 Pulitzer Prize for breaking news reporting and was president of the American Society of Newspaper Editors in 1995.

“Democracy is dying. It is absolutely dying,” Ketter declared, saying that school boards and local governments are being taken over by “far right” activists, largely unchallenged. He said many local newspapers, weakened by the loss of advertising and circulation, can’t handle “some of the anti-press attitudes that are being fostered in America.”

Ketter decried the efforts of local governments to get state legislatures to weaken laws that require local governments and other entities to run paid public-notice advertisements in local papers. “Those notices are what help small-town newspapers, and in small cities, survive,” because they can no longer depend on retail advertising, Ketter said, noting that in some places, governments have stopped placing the ads in newspapers whose coverage they don’t like.

“It’s not just about newspapers, it’s about democracy,” Ketter said. “The two are tied together.”

Ketter said he was glad to see the SPJ Foundation exploring an effort to see how it might funnel contributions to community news media or otherwise help them. He is on the foundation's board.

Like other speakers at SPJ’s annual awards banquet, Ketter said he was inspired by others who were recognized, including the late Jeff German, a Las Vegas Review-Journal reporter who was murdered – allegedly by a public official he was investigating. The official is now on trial. Outgoing SPJ President Claire Regan said it was “the first time in modern American history that a sitting public official was charged with the murder of a journalist over news coverage.”

Pulitzer winner Dana Priest of the University of Maryland and The Washington Post, one of the newest SPJ fellows, said “I can’t tell you how inspired I have been to be here,” away from “the East Coast media bubble. . . . You guys are heroes because you keep government on their toes.”

News-media roundup: Ark. sunshine; Okla. local-news study; week-long series on Neb. paper's role in community

Open-government advocates in Arkansas quashed efforts to carve large loopholes in the state's Freedom of Information Act, in a special session Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders called to do that and to make secret information about her security arrangements. The latter measure passed. Rejected were open-records exemptions for attorney-prepared documents and the "deliberative process" leading to "governmental decisions and policies" and attorney-prepared documents, and a change that would have "made it harder for people to recover legal fees for lawsuits filed under" the act, reports Neal Farley of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. Another rejected bill "would have shielded 'records reflecting communications between the governor or his or her staff and the secretary of a cabinet-level department'." The outcome showed "the power of citizen action," writes longtime FOI leader Sonny Albarado, editor of the Arkansas Advocate.

Counties in study (To enlarge the map, click on it.)

"Oklahomans statewide primarily rely on social media and local word of mouth for local news," and "rarely subscribe to local newspapers," media and political-science professors say in a study report after interviewing 352 news consumers in seven diverse counties in the state. The study is the "first qualitative observational study of both news deserts and under-served metro communities statewide in Oklahoma," says the Oklahoma Media Center, a nonprofit that funded the work by Rosemary Avance, assistant professor in the media school at Oklahoma State University, and Allyson Shortle, associate professor of political science and co-founder of the University of Oklahoma’s Community Engagement and Experiments Lab. They say "Small-town residents express more trust in local news when a local person is in charge of it."

"Final edititon of the Norfolk Daily News," trumpeted the main headline in the Aug. 17 edition of the Nebraska paper. "Or is it?" a subhead teased. Under it Kent Warnecke wrote, "The primary role of a headline is to attract a reader’s attention. Chances are, the headline on this story did just that. To be clear, this is NOT the final edition of the Norfolk Daily News. The Daily News will be published tomorrow, next week and into the future. But that isn’t the case elsewhere in the nation, and, as a result, it’s not an exaggeration to say our freedom as citizens is at risk." The story was part of a week-long "Protect the Pillar" series, referring to the news media as the fourth pillar of democracy. One story noted the demise of 16 Nebraska newspapers since 2004. Looks like good material for National Newspaper Week, Oct. 1-7.

California House is managed by its first rural speaker in decades, who faces big tests in holding Democrats together

California Assembly Speaker Robert Rivas visits Paicines, a farmworker community where he lived as a child.
(Photo by Jason Armond, Los Angeles Times)

California has a vast rural landscape and is the nation's leading producer of agricultural products, but is one of the least rural states in population. Now the leadership of its main legislative chamber, where the membership is determined by population, is rural.

"Robert Rivas, the first Assembly speaker in decades from a rural area, aims to unite a party long dominated by big-city liberals" and "hopes small-town charm wields big political power," say the hedlines above a Los Angeles Times profile of Rivas by Laurel Rosenhall.

She writes, "Rivas is from San Benito County, a land of "golden hills, cow pastures and rows of grapevines [where] a sign inside the roadside Paicines General Store makes the point clear: 'Welcome to the country.' . . . Rivas grew up in farmworker housing on the fields east of the store. On Fridays, he recalls his grandfather driving the boys up the road to join the picket lines outside a supermarket during the United Farm Workers grape boycott. Rivas and his family still live nearby in suburban Hollister, where shopping centers crawl with a mix of gleaming sport utility vehicles and mud-spattered pickups."

To the west is Monterey, home of Leon Panetta, ex-secretary of defense, CIA director, White House chief of staff and congressman, who has long known Rivas and told Rosenhall, “For too long, it’s been basically Los Angeles and San Francisco that have determined political leadership. It’s really important for him to bring that [rural] perspective to Sacramento, which too often basically listens to the loudest voices, and not always the most important needs.”

San Benito County (Wikipedia map)

San Benito County has "a quirky reputation as the state's political bellwether," and Rivas ousted the previous speaker, Anthony Rendon of L.A. County, "by pulling together a coalition of Democrats who hail from districts both north and south, urban and rural, coastal and inland," Rosenhall reports. "His supporters included some of the Legislature’s most ardent progressives, as well as some of its most conservative Democrats." That reflects his support of liberal measures like a local ban on hydraulic fracturing as a county suprevisor, and his early support from "more moderate, business-aligned Democrats" and his brother's lobbying and "donor network largely made up of Silicon Valley venture capitalists that seeks to counter the sway that public employee unions have in California politics. . . . So far, Rivas has managed to navigate California’s varied political universes largely by playing nice. He emphasizes his role as a listener more than a speaker. He’s been cautious about laying out a political agenda. In a Capitol full of swagger, Rivas’ vibe is decidedly aw-shucks. . . . But as the Legislature heads into the chaotic final stretch of the 2023 session that ends Thursday, Rivas will be put to the test. Lawmakers must decide the fate of numerous controversial proposals" in a Legislature controlled by Democrats but riven by factions, Rosenhall notes. "Rivas used his small-town charm to build power. But will he be effective in steering a caucus dominated by big-city liberals?"

Apply by Aug. 6 for 4-day statehouse reporting seminar in Madison, with travel and almost all other expenses covered

"The most consequential political issues of our time are being decided in statehouses across the country. For journalists on the front lines, the stakes have never been higher, as partisan positions have only hardened with a new presidential election cycle looming in 2024," says the National Press Foundation, which will hold a four-day training conference in Madison, Wisconsin, Sept. 18-21.

The foundation will cover airfare, ground transportation, hotel costs and most meals. Competitive applications for this free training are due Aug. 6. APPLY HERE.

NPF says it "has assembled a team of expert speakers and instructors to help guide journalists through the thicket that is the legislative process, where hard-ball politics makes the job of accountability and the search for the truth even tougher."

NPF adds, "The training will be held from 4 p.m. Monday, Sept. 18 to 2 p.m. Thursday, Sept. 21. Attendance is mandatory for all sessions, and editors must commit to freeing their reporters from daily news obligations during the conference. . . . We greatly value diversity in all our programs and particularly seek applications from local and nonprofit news organizations, journalists covering communities that have been disproportionately hurt by the pandemic; Black, Indigenous and other journalists of color; and those who do public-interest reporting in and about news deserts."

Rural regions will gain influence on Oregon's wildlife panel

These water-panel regions will be the basis for appointments.

In Oregon, a state with a strong rural-urban divide, rural areas will get a larger voice in wildlife policy now that members of the state Fish and Wildlife Commission will be appointed from watershed areas, not one each from congressional districts and the regions east and west of the Cascade Mountains, the state's main politcal divide.

Northwest Oregon, the state's main urbanized area, will still have control of the commission but won't be so dominant, reports Mateusz Perkowski of Capital Press: "Members will be chosen from among five river basins," but two basins "that include the populous Willamette Valley will each get two representatives, while the remaining three basins will each get one representative."

Oregon's six congressional districts

The much-amended bill passed the House unanimously and the Senate 23-2. "Tribes, farmers, ranchers and hunters claimed urban representatives disproportionately steer fish and wildlife policies, which should instead take into account expertise from across the state’s varied geography," Perkowski reports. The river basins will be those defined by the law for the state Water Resources Commission.

Lauren Poor, the Oregon Farm Bureau’s vice president of government and legal affairs, told Perkowski, “Consideration of how wildlife policies affect rural communities is something we feel has been lacking under the current commission structure.” If so, that won't change right away, since current commission members will be allowed to serve out their terms. But "giving southern and eastern Oregon greater influence on decisions, such as the looming update of the state’s wolf management plan . . . is a step in the right direction, she said."

State supermajorities, at highest level in 40 years, mean one party's agenda moves forward and the other is powerless

North Carolina state Rep. Tricia Cotham changed her party
affiliation to Republican. (Photo by Hannah Schoenbaum, AP)

Supermajorities are once again more common in the states, and their influence can be so powerful that the minority party becomes irrelevant, reports David Lieb of The Associated Press. "In North Carolina, a new supermajority of Republicans enacted abortion restrictions. In Vermont, a new supermajority of Democrats imposed a climate-sensitive home heating law. And in Montana, a GOP supermajority booted a transgender lawmaker from the House floor."

While there is no generally accepted definition of a supermajority, "The term generally is equated with whatever threshold is needed to override a gubernatorial veto," Lieb explains. "In many states, that's a two-thirds majority. In some, that's a three-fifths majority. In six states — Alabama, Arkansas, Indiana, Kentucky, Tennessee and West Virginia — it takes only a simple majority to override a veto. But those states all have Republican majorities around 70% or greater."

"Republicans or Democrats hold majorities so large in 28 states that they could override gubernatorial vetoes without any help from the minority party," with 19 Republican supermajorities and nine Democratic ones, Lieb reports. The total is the most since 1982, according to Saint Louis University political scientist Steven Rogers, an expert on elections and state legislatures.

Simply put, supermajorities have the votes to enact their agenda, and some members join them to gain leverage or make a difference.. "In April, North Carolina state Rep. Tricia Cotham switched from Democrat to Republican to give the GOP another supermajority," Lieb notes. "Six weeks after Cotham's switch, she provided a pivotal vote as the new GOP supermajority overrode Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper's veto of legislation banning most abortions after 12 weeks of pregnancy." 

Increases in supermajorities stem from two trends, Lieb reports: "Americans have increasingly voted along party lines, picking state lawmakers and even local officials who align with their party choice for president or the top of the ticket, Rogers said. At the same time, politicians in power in many states have gerrymandered voting district boundaries to give their party's candidates an advantage in legislative elections. . . . As parties gain more seats in House and Senate chambers, the political ideology of their middle members often shifts further to the right or left, reducing the need to appeal to moderates and virtually eliminating the need to compromise with the opposing party."

Depending on a voter's political leanings, "Some may be pleased by the sweeping policies that get enacted," Lieb points out. "Others may feel like their priorities are ignored." Carlos Algara, an assistant professor of government and politics at Claremont Graduate University in California, told Lieb: "On behalf of the voters, it might be a good thing, because it helps clarify responsibility. If you are a voter in California, you know explicitly which party owns policy; it's the Democratic Party. . . . So if you don't like the direction of policy in California, you have a very easy choice."

Program finalized for National Summit on Journalism in Rural America, July 7; hotel deadline extended one week

The program for the National Summit on Journalism in Rural America, July 7 in Lexington, Ky., and online, includes some of the latest research on rural journalism; and the experiences of some successful rural publishers and start-ups, both digital and print; philanthropy for rural jouranalism; efforts to change state policies to help local news; and university programs to fill gaps in local news coverage.

The summit will be a hybrid event, but most presenters will appear in person. Registration is free, and required; register here. The summit will be held at the Campbell House Curio Hotel, 10 minutes from the Lexington airport. A block of rooms at $139 per night has been extended to Friday, June 30.

The summit is sponsored by the Institute for Rural Journalism and Community Issues (publisher of The Rural Blog) at the University of Kentucky. Here's a closer look at the program:

The state of rural newspapers and the rise of ghost newspapers: Zachary Metzger, Northwestern University, will report on the latest data in the Medill School's continuing State of Local News study.

Rural publishers’ and readers’ views of alternate-revenue models: Nick Mathews, University of Missouri, will report on a study he did with Teri Finneman of the University of Kansas and Pat Ferrucci of the University of Colorado, which included an ongoing intervention with rural papers.

What it's like to be the subject in an alternate-revenue research experiment: Joey Young of Kansas Publishing Ventures, partner in the interventional research, will give his perspective on the study.

What rural publishers think about the future: Ross McDuffie, chief portfolio officer of the National Trust for Local News, will report on a survey of rural publishers that is now in the field.

Finding alternative-revenue success at a twice-weekly: David Woronoff, publisher of The Pilot in Southern Pines, N.C., will explain how his newspaper has broadened its revenue base.

Finding alternative-revenue success at a small daily: Jack Rooney, The Keene Sentinel, Keene, N.H., will do likewise, following up on the Sentinel's presentation at last year's summit.

Reviving Gannett ghosts: Jeremy Gulban, CEO of CherryRoad Media, owner of many former Gannett Co. papers, discusses the difficulty of reviving rural newspapers that lost most of their circulation and revenue under ownership of the nation's largest chain.

Rural journalism as a community builder: Bonita Robertson-Hardy, co-executive director, of the Aspen Institute Community Strategies Group, will discuss how accurate narratives, including high-quality journalism, help build trust and advance equitable rural prosperity.

Philanthropy for local news: Duc Luu, a jouralism officer at the Knight Foundation, moderates a panel with Richard Young of CivicLex, a local digital startup that focuses on local government and civil society; and Lillian Ruiz of Ci-X Strategies, which helps develop thriving public squares that communicate harmony, resilience and cohesion.

Broader rural news: Tim Marema, editor of The Daily Yonder, and Alana Rocha, editor of the Institite for Nonprofit News’s Rural News Network, will discuss how their online platforms bring a focus to broader rural issues and topics by exploring local examples.

Solutions journalism: Mary Steurer, government reporter for the Casper Star-Tribune, will discuss will for solutions-journalism reporting projects and beats in rural news deserts that have few existing resources. as well as ideas on how solutions journalism can be used to build trust in rural communities. Also participating: Melissa Cassutt, rural media manager of the Solutions Journalism Network.

Turning readers into correspondents and reporters: Lindsey Young of Kansas Publishing Ventures will discuss "Earn Your Press Pass," a program that she developed and is being used by state newspaper associations to help newspapers members fill gaps in local reporting.

Digital start-ups going against chain-owned small dailies: The experiences of Lynne Campbell of the Community News Brief in Macomb, Ill.; Jennifer P. Brown of the Hoptown Chronicle in Hopkinsville, Ky.; Debra Tobin of the Logan-Hocking Times in Logan, Ohio; and Nicole DeCriscio Bowe, who is just starting The Owen News in Spencer, Ind.

Seeking state policies to help local journalism: Anna Brugmann, director of policy at the Rebuild Local News Coalition, will discuss how it has turned its attention to state governments, and report on some legislative successes, including a tax break in Washington state and California House passage of a bill that would require tech platforms to give publishers money to hire journalists.

Retreating to Facebook: What do you do when you publish one of the best small weeklies in America but have reached a turnign point in life and have to give up printing your newspaper? Laurie Ezzell Brown of The Canadian Record in Texas and Ryan Craig of the Todd County Standard in Kentucky talked about how they still report on Facebook, and Craig reports on his growing audience. 

Bringing students into communities to report local news: Richard Watts of the Center for Community News at the University of Vermont moderates a panel with Alan Miller of Denison University in central Ohio and Christopher Drew of Louisiana State University.

Maintaining and growing print circulation: Patrick Schless of the Lewis County Press's Community Journalism Project says, "Strengthening community newspapers starts with print first; it is what the staff believe in, what the current subscribers know, and what the small-town advertisers understand." He's working with 70 rural papers to strengthen print product while building a bridge to a hybrid future.

Where do we go from here? Concluding roundtable, moderated by Benjy Hamm, incoming director of the Institute for Rural Journalism and Community Issues.

The day will conclude with a cash-bar reception and optional dinner, which carries a $50 fee. The rest of the day is free of charge, thanks to the Institute and its parent units: the UK School of Journalism and Media and the College of Communication and Information.

Newspapers, take note: How to make the most of public notices, now a very important part of your revenue

By the Public Notice Resource Center and the Institute for Rural Journalism

Along with open-meeting and freedom-of-information laws, public notice is an essential element of the three-legged stool of open government. The purpose of public notice is to prevent official actions from occurring in secret, and they have become an essential element in newspapers' revenue mix. But local officials and others keep lobbying state legislatures to cut back on paid notices.

Opponents argue that public notices should move from newspapers to the internet, so the local notices that run in your printed editions also need to run, with no addiitonal charge, on your website – not just the statewide sites that many state newspaper associations maintain (sometimes as a legal requirement). Notices should never be behind a paywall.

If a public-notice ad has news value, write a story about it or at least direct readers to it via social media. If a public notice plays a role in a story, mention it – taking the opportunity to draw attention to the importance of notice publication in news media. To make sure this happens, designate someone to read the public notices in each publication.

Promote the effectiveness of public notices in your paper. “Delinquent taxes roll in – after debtors’ names are published” is an easy headline to imagine.

Promote public notices in your paper with house ads in print and online – with social media, rack cards, etc. Mention them in editorials and columns throughout the year. Maintain relationships not only with notice clients, but also legislative representatives.

Notices should be easy to find. Give them a home-page link. Don't bury them in “classifieds. Rethink your Public Notice section: use visual section headers; publish contact information of public-notice personnel; use headlines to break up groups of notices, and subheads. Create an index of notices, and create a glossary of public notice terms; it's an informative filler.

Don’t take public notice for granted. Treat public notice clients like customers. Help the buyers of public notices – your customers – meet statutory requirements. This is not always easy, but you need to be an expert to truly serve your client. You will provide value to clients and set yourself apart from potential competitors. This can be specially important for private-party clients, but local governments need help too.

Notices must be readable. The type size should be the same as main news. Each notice should be distinguishable from the surrounding text. They should appear in the paper as if we care whether or not people read them. Public notices are news.

Finally, accuracy is paramount. When newspapers mess up a notice, fail to publish it ,or publish it at the wrong time, that provides ammunition for those who want to stop paying for them.

Louisiana is first state with a law that will make online public notices the ones for which newspapers will be paid

The state-by-state battle over public notices, which have become a vital source of income for newspapers, has taken a new twist. "Last week, Louisiana became the first state to pass a law that will eventually make newspaper websites the primary platform for public notice," with local governments paying for online ads but not print ads, the Public Notice Resource Center reports.

Local governments will be required to post their notices on newspaper websites in 2027, and publish in print "notices describing the subject matter and location of the online notices," PNRC reports, but those notices will be free and the online ads will be paid.

The Louisiana Press Association proposed the bill as a compromise to head off "the potential of a worse outcome later," PNRC reports. The bill replaces the "complicated pricing structure" for public notices with a system based on the number of text characters, or by "a price-per-square-inch formula for display ads and other prebuilt notices. That structure, which newspapers and their local government clients can opt to use beginning Jan. 1, 2024, is particularly well-suited to pricing online ads when the transition to digital notice takes place three years later."

LPA Executive Director Jerry Raehal said the new system may "result in a revenue decrease for LPA members but he emphasizes it was part of a compromise designed to secure the future of public notice in the state," PNRC reports. Raehal said it is “a win-win-win,” because “Local governments get some economic relief and a more transparent pricing model. Local newspapers get a path forward to retain public notices in a digital format, and a runway to prepare for the changes. And Louisiana citizens maintain easy access to government notices from a trusted source.”

The bill, which made several other changes in Louisiana's public-notice law, passed both houses unanimously and is expected to be signed by Gov. Jon Bel Edwards when it reaches his desk.

California House OKs plan to have tech platforms pay news outlets, with 70% going to journalism; Meta issues threat

"Despite threats by Meta to remove news from its platforms," the California House passed 55-6 a bill requiring tech platforms to pay news publishers a fee "based on the advertising revenue generated from the use of their content, to be determined by a neutral arbiter," The California News Publishers Association reports. The bill "seeks to finally level the playing field between Big Tech and journalism providers, no matter their size," CNPA says. "Additionally, the bill requires that 70 percent of revenue from the bill go back into newsrooms and journalism jobs." The lobbying group adds, "This bill will ensure the future of journalism and our role in democracy."

Lobbying by Media Guild of the West, a local of The NewsGuild-CWA, resulted in the bill requiring more transparency about use of the money, and steering it more to newsroom jobs. The bill, which passed Thursday, is not assured of passage in the state Senate, because the tech platforms didn't have much of a lobbying presence until the bill hit the House floor, and Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom hasn't weighed in on it yet.

As 4-day school week gains steam, some states are trying to restrict the policy, which is most popular in rural areas

CDC photo, Unsplash

To recruit and keep teachers, many schools have adopted a four-day school week. "Nationwide, the number of four-day schools has increased by 600% over the past two decades, now numbering more than 1,600 in 24 states, according to research published in 2021," reports David Montgomery of Stateline. "The schedule is most popular in small, rural districts. In Colorado, which has the largest percentage, 124 of the state's 178 districts (70%) follow a four-day schedule."

The practice has had mixed educational results. "Many four-day schools report higher test scores, fewer discipline problems and strong support from parents, teachers and staff. But amid the success stories, the idea faces headwinds as emerging research points to academic declines and other problems," Montgomery writes. "School districts that go from five days to four typically make up at least some of the missing hours by adding time to the other days or extending the school year. But four-day schedules average only 148 school days per year, resulting in less time in school than the national average of 180 days per year for five-day schools."

Less time in the classroom and poorer test results have prompted states to limit or ban four-day school weeks. "In Oklahoma, for example, a 2019 law requires school districts to seek waivers for four-day schools. Lawmakers in Missouri and Texas are pushing legislation to block the practice," Montgomery reports. "A comprehensive study raised fears of academic setbacks among fragile student populations. . . . The six-state analysis, published last summer by the Annenberg Institute at Brown University, found lower student achievement in four-day schools, with larger negative effects among Hispanic students, as well as in those in towns and the suburbs, as compared to rural areas. . . . In Texas, state Sen. Donna Campbell (R), vice chair of the Senate Education Committee, also is pushing a bill that would require five-day weeks. . . . Campbell said the four-day schedule 'has unintentionally caused hardships on working families and does not seem to improve student outcomes,' and research suggests 'It seems to have some negative effects on children.'"

But educators in some Texas schools are defending the schedule and say they should be able to choose what they think is best for their districts. Paula Patterson, superintendent of the Houston-area Crosby Independent School District, which has more than 6,000 students and is about to be the largest Texas district with a four-day week, told Montgomery, "Four days with an exceptional teacher is much more effective and productive than five days with a less effective teacher."

Research on student learning outcomes is mostly recent, and thus limited. Emily Morton, one author of a study published by the Annenberg Institute, told Montgomery, "The findings, Morton said, are largely 'a story of trade-offs,' showing an overall small to medium 'negative effect' on achievement, though close to zero in rural districts, along with positives such as downturns in fighting and bullying. . . . Morton acknowledged, however, that the shortened week has been a morale booster in many districts. . . . School district leaders say the reduced schedule has curtailed or eradicated vacancies and eased the workload on staff."

Conservative group works to relax child-labor laws, citing 'parental rights'; biggest victory has been in Arkansas

Chart by Jacob Bogage, Washington Post, from Department of Labor data

With guidance from a conservative lobbying group, some states are relaxing their child labor laws; the changes may make exploitive practices more common and violators harder to find, report Jacob Bogage and María Luisa Paúl of The Washington Post: "Iowa lawmakers voted last week to roll back certain protections. . . . The state's Senate approved a bill to allow children as young as 14 to work night shifts and 15-year-olds on assembly lines. . . .The measure, which still must pass the Iowa House, is among several the Foundation for Government Accountability is maneuvering through state legislatures. . . . The Florida-based think tank and its lobbying arm, the Opportunity Solutions Project, have found remarkable success among Republicans to relax regulations that prevent children from working long hours in dangerous conditions."

"On the surface, the FGA frames its child-worker bills as part of a larger debate surrounding parental rights, including education and child care," Bogage and Paúl write. "It achieved its biggest victory in March, playing a central role in designing a new Arkansas law to eliminate work permits and age verification for workers younger than 16. . . . . Sponsor, state Rep. Rebecca Burkes (R), said in a hearing that the legislation 'came to me from the Foundation [for] Government Accountability.'"

"Since 2016, the FGA's Opportunity Solutions Project has hired 115 lobbyists across the country with a presence in 22 states, according to the nonpartisan political watchdog group Open Secrets," the Post reports. David Campbell, professor at the University of Notre Dame, told Bogage and Paúl, "The reason these rather unpopular policies succeed is because they come in under the radar screen. . . .Typically, these things get passed because they are often introduced in a very quiet way or by groups inching little by little through grass-roots efforts."

Annie B. Smith, director of the University of Arkansas law school's Human Trafficking Clinic, told the Post, "This is likely to make it even harder for the state to enforce our own child-labor laws. . . . Not knowing where young kids are working makes it harder for [state departments] to do proactive investigations and visit workplaces where they know that employment is happening to make sure that kids are safe." The lack of documentation leaves children exposed. "The work permits — more than 2,700 of which were issued by Arkansas officials in 2022, according to state government data — required proof of age, parental permission and an employer's signature," the Post reports. "They left an 'important paper trail' of where children were employed and reminded businesses of the rules, said Laura Kellams, from the nonprofit Arkansas Advocates for Children and Families."

Congress passed the Fair Labor Standards Act in 1938 partly to "stop companies from using cheap child labor to do dangerous work, a practice that exploded during the Great Depression," Bogage and Paúl report. "The Labor Department has seen a 69 percent increase in minors employed in violation of federal law since 2018, officials reported. Between 2018 and 2022, federal regulators opened cases for 4,144 child labor violations covering 15,462 youth workers, according to federal data."

One-party control, urban-rural divides, gerrymandering, lack of competition make state legislatures less representative

"One-party control of state legislatures, compounded by hyper-partisan politics, widespread gerrymandering, an urban-rural divide and uncompetitive races," has made many of them dysfunctional, writes Michael Wines of The New York Times, or less representative of their states than they should be, writes Karen Tumulty of The Washington Post.

Wines's object example is Tennessee, where 60 of the 99 House members had no opposition in last year's general election. (The national rate is about 40 percent.) "Of the remaining House races, almost none were competitive. Not a single seat flipped from one party to the other. . . . The lack of competition means incumbent lawmakers face few consequences for their conduct. And their legislative actions are driven in large part by the fraction of partisans who determine their fates in primary elections, the only political contests where they face serious opposition."

“We’re just not in a normal political system,” Kent Syler, a political science professor and expert on state politics at Middle Tennessee State University, told Wines. “In a normal two-party system, if one party goes too far, usually the other party stops them. They put the brakes on.”

Such forces have been "intensified by the Supreme Court’s open door for gerrymandering and the geographic sorting of Democrats into urban areas and Republicans into rural ones," Wines reports. One-party control "has enabled both parties to enact legislation advancing their policy agendas . . . but it is Republican-run states, many experts say, that are taking extreme positions on limiting voting and bending or breaking other democratic norms, as Tennessee did in expelling two lawmakers last week."

Another factor is that national politics now trump state issues, said Steven Rogers, a Saint Louis University political scientist who has studied the issue. He told Wines, “It’s pretty much what a voter thinks of the president that is going to dictate how a voter casts their ballot in a state legislative election. What legislators do themselves doesn’t really matter that much anymore.”

In an opinion piece for the Post, Tumulty writes, "It should come as no surprise that, as the balance of power in state capitols is becoming more lopsided, we are seeing more extreme measures coming out of them, particularly those where Republicans have control." She quotes Wendy R. Weiser, who runs the democracy program at New York University’s Brennan Center for Justice: “State legislatures are not only crossing lines and abusing authority but are increasingly misaligned with the will of the voting public.”

After 17 years of debate, Iowans will be able to buy raw milk, but health questions remain; 18 other states ban sales

Michael Jennings Photography photo via Des Moines Register

After almost two decades of debate, the Iowa Legislature gave its final approval to allow the sale of raw milk from farm to consumer, reports Donnelle Eller of the Des Moines Register. "Previously passed by the House, it will let producers sell unpasteurized milk to Iowans from their farms, as well as cheese, yogurt, ice cream and other raw milk products. . . . Sen. Jason Schultz was the bill's Senate floor manager; he said that he'd waited 17 years for a raw milk bill to clear the Legislature. . . . Senate Bill 315 goes to Gov. Kim Reynolds for her signature."

The bill's passage doesn't mean the conflict over raw milk is settled. "Supporters say raw milk tastes better and has more nutrients, while opponents say it can contain bacteria that's dangerous to children and could spark a public health outbreak," Eller writes. "Several major farm organizations, including the Iowa State Dairy Association and Iowa Dairy Foods Association, registered to lobby against the bill. . . . Rep. Megan Srinivas, (D) and Des Moines infectious disease doctor, said last week during the House's debate on the bill that she's concerned children will become ill, with potentially lethal ramifications, if adults give them unpasteurized milk."

The bill sets some limits on where products can be sold along with testing requirements, but Srinivas points out that testing may not prevent illnesses. "Under Senate Bill 315, producers can sell the raw milk and related products from their farms, but not at farmers markets or restaurants. Containers must have labels saying the contents were not subject to state inspections or public health regulations," Eller reports. "It sets a testing requirement of no more than 25,000 colony-forming units, or CFUs, of bacteria per milliliter in raw milk. . . . [the testing] doesn't distinguish between the types of bacteria, Srinivas said, adding that some bacteria are good for people, while others are deadly," Eller reports. Srinivas told her, "If I had 25,000 CFUs of lactobacillus, a very healthy gut bacteria we have in probiotics, growing in my raw milk, I wouldn't be concerned. But if we have even 5,000 or 10,000 colony-forming units of Shigella, that can be lethal."

Rep. Bobby Kaufmann, a farmer who was the bill's House sponsor, said the legislation "allows Iowans to buy raw milk if they want it," Eller writes. Kaufmann said, "We're simply adding this to the list of foods that people can get without Jiminy Cricket, the government, sitting on their shoulder, and whispering what's best for their families." Eller adds, "Iowa is one of 19 states that has prohibited the sale of unpasteurized milk, according to Raw Milk Facts."

Washington legislature passes bill to exempt newspapers from state gross-receipts tax to 'support local journalism'

Pexels/Digital Bugg photo via Columbia Basin Herald 

Efforts to shift government policies to help local news media, now focusing on states instead of Congress, have scored their first major victory. The Washington State Legislature has sent Democratic Gov. Jay Inslee a bill that eliminates the 0.35% gross-receipts tax on newspapers and certain digital news media.

Senate Bill 5199 "reduces the business and occupations tax rate to 0% for newspaper publishing and for news websites that are the successors to newspapers that were published prior to Jan. 1, 2008," reports Rebecca Pettingill of the Columbia Basin Herald. "The tax break is only effective for 10 years, beginning on Jan. 1, 2024."

The nonpartisan legislative staff report on the bill says it "states a specific public policy objective of protecting and supporting local journalism," and if a review by the legislature's audit committee "finds that [the] exemption accomplishes its goal of supporting local journalism across the state, measured by retaining 75 percent of journalism jobs, local newspapers, and community-focused online news outlets based in Washington as of December 31, 2022, or if a review finds the tax exemption enables locally based journalism outlets to continue to exist when compared to states that did not provide similar tax incentives, then a legislative presumption is created that the 2034 expiration date should be extended."

Fred Obee, executive director of the Washington Newspaper Publishers Association, told Pettingill, "As government watchdogs, newspapers are essential to our democracy. . . . Not only do newspapers keep the public informed and elected officials honest, they also connect merchants to their essential market and people to each other." Bob Richardson, regional general manager of Hagadone Media – Washington, which publishes the Herald, said, "The passage of Senate Bill 5199 shows the importance of newspapers in our local communities. We strive to be the voice of the people in our communities."

The bill passed the House 89-7 and the Senate 47-1, with the only no vote from Sen. Phil Fortunato (R-Auburn), who noted that it was the only tax break passed by the Legislature this session. He has sponsored other tax-break bills that haven't gotten a hearing.

Wis. puts on top court a judge who broke norms by taking positions on big issues; some rural counties shifted her way

Janet Protasiewicz, center, celebrates her victory.
(Photo by Mike De Sisti, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel)

In the latest twist on Wisconsin politics, "Voters on Tuesday chose to upend the political direction of their state by electing a liberal candidate to the State Supreme Court, flipping majority control from conservatives, reports The Associated Press. Thus, the court is likely to reverse the state's 1849 abortion ban and "end the use of gerrymandered legislative maps drawn by Republicans," reports Reid J. Epstein of The New York Times. "Janet Protasiewicz, a liberal Milwaukee County judge, overwhelmingly defeated Daniel Kelly, a conservative former Wisconsin Supreme Court justice who sought a return to the bench."

The race was officially nonpartisan but Democrats lined up for Protasiewicz and Republicans for Kelly. Some rural communities that voted for Barack Obama in 2012 and then twice for Donald Trump returned to the "Democratic" column. Abortion-rights supporters credited the U.S. Supreme Court's overturning of Roe v. Wade, which reactivated the state's old abortion law, for the shift. "Rural voters moved 5 points toward the Democratic candidate compared to the 2020 presidential and 2022 U.S. Senate elections," The Daily Yonder reports. But that was not as much a shift as was seen in metropolitan areas.

"Judge Protasiewicz, 60, shattered long-held notions of how judicial candidates should conduct themselves by making her political priorities central to her campaign," Epstein writes. "She made explicit her support for abortion rights and called the maps, which gave Republicans near-supermajority control of the Legislature, 'rigged' and 'unfair.'. . . The contest, which featured over $40 million in spending, was the most expensive judicial election in American history. Early on, Democrats recognized the importance of the race for a swing seat on the top court in one of the country's perennial political battlegrounds."

"Justice Kelly, 59, evinced the bitterness of the campaign with a testy concession speech that acknowledged his defeat and portended doom for the state," and said Protasiewicz was "not a worthy opponent," Epstein reports. "In an interview at her home before the results were known, Judge Protasiewicz (pronounced pro-tuh-SAY-witz) attributed her success on the campaign trail to the decision to inform voters of what she called 'my values,' as opposed to Justice Kelly, who used fewer specifics about his positions."

News-media roundup: A.I. journalism arrives; a Sunshine Week victory; hope for the future in a volunteer writer . . .

Community journalism produced by artificial intelligence has arrived, and it's scary, warns Reed Anfinson of Minnesota's Swift Coutny Monitor-News. He cites a Poynter Institute article by Alex Mahadevan and writes, "Deceiving the reader is going to become A.I.-assisted child’s play. Where does that leave citizens of a representative democracy who depend on trusted information to assess those elected to serve their needs?"

The Trust Project announces that its seal of approval has been added to several more news sites "as need for trustworthy news reaches crisis." They include its first tribal-nation site, Osage News; its first entirely health-focused site, MindSite News, which focuses on mental health; and Eye on Ohio, Investigate Midwest and the Texas Tribune.

Kirsten Lane

When high-school junior Kirsten Lane volunteered to write for the weekly Hickman County Times in Centerville, Tenn., Editor and Publisher Brad Martin welcomed her, "because folks who like to write are few." He reports that Lane "is polite, a good speller, writes clean sentences, can ask a question, makes focused photographs, meets deadline requirements and offers to go above and beyond. . . . Even if she doesn't go into a writing field, she will know about newspaper writing ... a cousin to efficiency, attentiveness and the ability to analyze. You may not think those abilities are important, and that this nation's future will simply develop on the sentence-by-sentence creations entered into hand-held devices every few seconds. I must say, good luck with that."

Sunshine Week, the annual promotion of open government, saw "a huge victory" in Arkansas, reports Arkansas Publisher Weekly, from the Arkansas Press Association. A bill to ease less-than-quorum meetings of boards "was rejected in a voice vote at the end of an all-day hearing," before and after the House's floor session. "After testimony from eight FOIA advocates representing APA, the Arkansas FOIA Coalition, the legislature-appointed FOIA Task Force and other groups and individuals, several lawmakers asked [the sponsor] to pull the bill down and negotiate an agreement with the APA and other FOIA groups. She adamantly refused, and the House panel rejected the measure as several FOIA advocates cheered." The Arkansas Advocate has details.

Editor Tammy Shaw

When Paxton Media Group eliminated a reporter's position at The Sentinel-News in Shelbyville, Ky., James Mulcahy quit as editor and reporter Tammy Shaw was named to replace him. In her first column as editor, she writes, "Last week I talked to an official at a local meeting, and they asked if the company was winding down the paper, one employee at a time. Not in the least. . . . This paper is more than one or two people, no matter how great the loss. It has lasted a very long time and will continue as long as there is support in the community."

Muckrack's "State of Journalism 2023" reports after surveying more than 2,200 journalists: Two-thirds say their work has been affected by economic uncertainty; about half considered leaving Twitter, but only 28% say they plan to spend less time on the social network this year; they also say they plan to spend more time on YouTube, LinkedIn and TikTok.

Despite its long history as a leader in fossil fuels, the Lone Star State leads the nation in renewable-energy production

Chart by Paul Horn, ICN, from Energy Information Admin. data

Some people say "Everything is bigger in Texas," and that sentiment rings true in the case of a subject that some may find surprising, given the state's fossil-fuel heritage: clean energy.

"A new batch of data about the country's electricity generation shows the increasing dominance of one state as the clean-energy leader . . . Texas," reports Dan Gearino of Inside Climate News. "Texas has produced more gigawatt-hours of electricity from renewable sources than any other state. . . . thanks largely to wind energy. Now, the state is expanding its lead by continuing to be the county's leader in wind energy. . . and is quickly closing the gap on California on utility-scale solar power."

Texas' dominance is partly a function of its size, but it already generates more than twice as much power from wind and solar as California, and "more than either New York or Ohio generated from all electricity sources," Gearino notes. "But Texas is also the country's leader in overall electricity generation, and it's the leader in generation from gas and coal, so the total for wind and solar, while gigantic, was just 34.3 percent of the total from all sources."

If you add up "all carbon-free electricity sources, which includes renewables and nuclear., the leader, again, is Texas, with 180,145 gigawatt-hours, followed by Illinois with 124,055 gigawatt-hours, most of it from nuclear," Gearino reports. Just about any way you slice the numbers, Texas is on top."

Chart by Paul Horn, ICN, from Energy Information Admin. data

"Texas has the best combination of wind and solar resources in the U.S.," said Eric Gimon, a senior fellow at the think tank Energy Innovation in San Francisco, told Gearino. He adds, "By that, he means the state has high winds and bright sun. . . . But Texas is more than just resource-rich. It also has vast amounts of developable land and a regulatory system that is friendly to renewable energy developers, Gimon said."

The state's renewable-energy dominance is somewhat surprising because politically, its "leadership is closely tied to fossil-fuel industries and has been hostile to cleaner options."

Doug Lewin, president of Stoic Energy, a clean energy consulting firm, told Gearino that other states "are scrambling to attract this kind of investment. And here, Texas has some subset of policymakers that seem hell-bent on slowing it down."

"But this sentiment is more pervasive in politics than it is in the business community, Lewin said. Some of Texas' largest oil and gas companies are also investing in renewable energy," Gearino reports. Lewin told him, "It doesn't look like as much of a cage match as some people in the Capitol think it is."