Kicking newspapers while they're down

As Connecticut’s newspapers face an uncertain future, the General Assembly is looking at an opportunity to hit them while they’re down by eliminating a revenue source the press has enjoyed for centuries.

Ever since the first Congress was gaveled to order in 1789, there have been federal and state laws directing government at every level to advertise public notices in the local press. But now, Connecticut’s governor wants to allow cities and towns to take the public notices for activities like meetings, public bidding procedures and zoning applications out of the papers and publish them for free on their own Web sites.

The original intent of requiring the publication of public notices was noble. It was designed to keep the public informed about government activities in the only medium of information that then existed, the local newspaper. They were among the first unfunded mandates.

New media, as they arrived, seemed unsuited for this kind of advertising, and radio and TV never got a piece of the action. But then, along came the Internet and Craigs List, which not only took away a large amount of classified ad revenue from newspapers, but also demonstrated that the Internet would be a comfortable home for public notices as well.

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Gov. Rell, who is looking for items to take from the next state budget after lacking the leadership resolve to sign or veto the last one, sees removing the public notice mandate as a way to save some money for the beleaguered cities and towns while harming no one except the newspapers.

The Democratic legislative leaders, who were Rell’s partners in the creation of the last budget debacle, have yet to take a stand but they admit they’re thinking about supporting the governor.

The newspapers, like any other special interest under the threat of losing public funds, are fighting back with the somewhat exaggerated claim that public notices are the backbone of our democracy.

“DON’T LET CONNECTICUT OFFICIALS REMOVE YOUR RIGHT TO KNOW FROM THE NEWSPAPER,†screamed a red headline of the kind rarely seen since Hearst’s New York Journal got us into the Spanish-American War.

The headline, in a full-page ad by the Connecticut Daily Newspaper Association, tended to confuse public notices with newspapers themselves. “They†(the ads) “have helped develop America into a participatory democracy for hundreds of years and where it counts the most: how your tax dollars are spent, how policy is made and how our futures are charted.â€

James Leahy, executive director of the association, then backtracked a bit and acknowledged, “We can argue whether more people will see public notices on the Internet or in their local newspaper. People have their preferences and they are shifting.†But he noted that while “the cries of the leaders of Connecticut’s cities and towns regarding the need to reduce unfunded mandates must be heard.… We must distinguish between those mandates with a necessary public purpose and those that are luxuries.â€

A message more to the point, if just a tad sarcastic, was suggested by former Hartford Courant employees who were downsized, bought out, let go or otherwise unemployed in recent years. They are represented by a Web site known as the Hartford Courant Alumni Association and Refugee Camp, which recommended the newspapers try this approach:

“Dear Readers: We are about to lose one of our last remaining dependable streams of revenue, and even though we know the government is in really bad shape, we need the money. So please give us a break (and save a job) by letting us soak the taxpayers for a service the government could provide at virtually no cost to itself.â€

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It’s an interesting choice for legislators. They can decide, with some justice, that the public’s right to know will survive the placement of public notices on the Internet or they can determine these ads are one of those “mandates with a necessary public purpose†and perhaps delay any move against the newspapers for a session or two.

If they do allow municipalities to stop placing public notices in newspapers, they will, as noted above, be hitting the newspapers while they are down. And some may not get up.

Dick Ahles is a retired journalist from Simsbury. E-mail him at dahles@hotmail.com.