Public notices belong in newspapers, not online
by Index Editorial · January 20, 2010

Public notices belong in newspapers, an effective, affordable delivery system that makes sure government is accountable to the citizens of Iowa.

The Iowa State Association of Counties has made it a legislative priority to allow counties to post notices online, instead of in newspapers. Others have suggested the same.

Those advocating for the move know that publishing notices in newspapers is the best method. Therefore, their reasoning might really be to diminish transparency. In other words: They don’t really want you to know what’s going on with your government — your tax dollars.

Those who want the change do it under the guise of cost savings — the county organization indicates “Counties currently spend in excess of $3 million per year to publish various notices and other required documents.” All county spending in Iowa totaled nearly $2.1 billion in 2009. The investment in keeping citizens informed through notices in newspapers was about .14 percent of all county spending.

For a household income of $50,000, that’d be akin to the family saving $70 a year.

At this writing, we’ve learned of no specific legislation to end notices in newspapers. But it concerns us — and it should concern you.

Notices should remain in newspapers because:

They’re effective —

The method of distribution is of utmost importance when it comes to public notices.

Publishing notices in newspapers means they are delivered directly to the vast majority of Iowans (nearly 90 percent of Iowans read their local newspaper). Putting notices on a Web site makes them simply available — there’s no direct distribution. (According to results of a recent study by Newton Marketing and Research, nearly 60 percent of those surveyed said they have NEVER read information on a local government Web site.)

Public notices in newspapers are also read.

More than half of those from the recent survey who said they read their local paper reported that they read the public notices. Already, the Iowa Newspaper Association has a Web site it has invested heavily in for public notices. In a year’s time, the site had just 20,000 unique visitors (different people). Compare that to the nearly 2.6 million readers of Iowa newspapers (more than half of whom report reading notices — nearly 1.5 million Iowans).

They’re affordable —

The line item for publishing notices in the newspaper is less than 1/20th of 1 percent for local governments — schools, cities and counties.

Publishing notices online is not free, and the cost to do it with distribution/readership marching that of newspapers would come with significant expense. Even if posting notices on Web sites were free, it would be a waste of time if Iowans didn’t see them.

They require accountability —

A newspaper is a third-party verifier/auditor when a public notice is published. We must sign an affidavit of publication for each notice that’s published. And on several occasions, we’ve reminded local governments of the timeliness requirements in state law when it comes to publishing notices.

Do we really want government officials themselves acting as their own watchdogs?

Posting public notices on Web sites does not force accountability, isn’t free and isn’t effective.

Government that’s FOR THE PEOPLE must be transparent — continuing to publish notices in newspapers meets that end.