Legal notices need to be seen

Connecticut’s daily newspapers sometimes advocate cutting government spending and urge the government to stand up to special interests. So even within the newspaper business itself there has been some guffawing at the advertising campaign recently undertaken by the Connecticut Daily Newspaper Association to prevent repeal of the state law requiring government agencies to alert the public to their business through newspaper ads.

As part of her new budget proposal and at the urging of the Connecticut Conference of Municipalities, Gov. Rell has suggested repealing the legal notice requirement in the name of relieving state mandates on cities and towns. Instead of placing legal notice ads in newspapers, municipalities could satisfy legal requirements by putting notices on their Web sites.

Since municipal Internet sites have only tiny audiences, that would be the end of any practical notice of government’s doings — and doubly so because the loss of ad revenue would cause newspapers to reduce local news coverage, which already has been ravaged by the recession.  Some newspapers may even close.

Of course, then something might take the place of newspapers. Connecticut already has a few Internet sites providing a small amount of state or local news and operating essentially as charities, funded by foundation grants or donations or by self-employed journalists hoping just to cover their expenses.

But even if all newspapers closed tomorrow, it would be a long time before those Internet sites developed even a fraction of the scope and audience Connecticut’s newspapers retain despite the hard times.

There’s no denying that the legal notice requirement is a subsidy to the newspaper business. So the legal notice requirement should be tested just as other government contracting is tested — by whatever value it gives or fails to give.

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In determining whether the legal notice requirement gives value, the value of news reporting about government has to be considered. Right now Connecticut’s newspapers report about state and local government all out of proportion to the public’s interest, apparently believing the public should be more civic-minded than it is.

Of course, some people in government may feel differently. For if they can just get rid of legal notice advertising, they soon may get rid of most oversight and accountability as well. That will cost the public far more than legal ads, but then without newspapers to report what’s wrong, the public won’t be able to figure anything out.

Chris Powell is managing editor of the Journal Inquirer in Manchester.