Download and Reprint our Public Notice Ads

Ad campaign focuses on need to protect public notices in newspapers and readers' right to know

You have the right to know what's happening in your community.

A new marketing campaign being rolled out by America's Newspapers highlights the need to protect public notices in newspapers and readers' right to know.

Newspapers can download this series of print and social media ads at no cost.  The print ads include space for the name or logo of the newspaper publishing them. 

The ads, produced in partnership with Sandpaper Marketing, call on readers to let their state legislators know that they value being able to access notices in the newspaper and that they are worth the investment.

If you have any difficulty accessing the files, email Greg Watson at America's Newspapers.

Yes, I want to access the print and digital ads from America's Newspapers!

 

Updates from around the country
The suspense over Alaska Senate Bill 68, which would remove the legal requirement that public notices related to the sale and removal of water, are to be placed in local newspapers, is resolved.
March 5, 2024 - Last month provided additional confirmation that state legislatures are increasingly looking to newspaper websites rather than government sites to supplement and perhaps eventually serve as an alternative to printed newspapers as the primary medium for public notice. Bills illustrating that trend moved closer to becoming law in both Indiana and Iowa.
February 14, 2024 - A new bill signed by Governor Kristi Noem on Feb. 12 will redefine the term “legal newspaper” in South Dakota.
February 7, 2023 - Public notice legislation introduced so far in 2024 suggests state legislatures are growing increasingly comfortable having news websites serve as an alternative source of official notice. And that comfort seems to have cooled their ardor for moving notices from newspapers to government websites.
December 21, 2023 - The City of Salina (Kansas) has decided to use its own website to publish notices beginning with the new year.
December 6, 2023 - 2023 was a lot like 2022: A pretty good year marred primarily by the vote of a GOP-dominated state legislature to allow some local governments to publish notice on their own websites in lieu of local newspapers. Last year it was Florida, this year Ohio.
November 8, 2023 - Townships in Ohio are seeking the same power already granted to municipalities in the state: The power to publish notice via the Internet instead of a local newspaper.
Approved by the 2023 legislature, the new law states e-editions of a newspaper may satisfy publication rules for legal notices, which in the past had to be published in an actual newspaper.
Ohio HB-33 allows municipalities to publish many or most of their notices on their own websites and social media feeds or on the Ohio News Media Association’s statewide public notice website, instead of publishing them in local newspapers or legal journals.
September 14, 2023 - Retaliation against newspapers using public notice contracts is not new, and it’s happening around the country.
September 7, 2023 - With only eight state legislatures still in session, the legislative die for 2023 has largely been cast. There’s always a chance that one of those states could still make mischief, but when the calendar turns to Dec. 31 it’s likely we’ll be able to say it was a pretty good year for public notice.
July 12, 2023 - Jim Lockwood, a reporter for the Times-Tribune in Scranton, Pennsylvania, has been named the 2023 winner of the Public Notice Resource Center’s Michael Kramer Public Notice Journalism Award.
June 20, 2023 - When coverage upsets them, towns and counties are revoking newspapers’ lucrative contracts to print public notices.
June 6, 2023 - Last week, Louisiana became the first state to pass a law that will eventually make newspaper websites the primary platform for public notice.
March 13, 2023 - Local newspapers nationwide are facing the loss of a key source of cash that many need to survive: legal notices.  
Public Notices: Keeping Citizens informed
March 23, 2021 - By a vote of 8-3, the Florida Senate’s Judiciary Committee voted March 22 to send legislation to the Senate floor that — if approved — would authorize legal notifications in Florida, in certain cases, to be published on a website established by the Supreme Court, in lieu of newspaper publication. SB 402 also specifies that website publication constitutes proof of publication, unless otherwise determined by a court. 

Reprint our editorial
Let your state legislators know that you value being able to access notices in your newspaper and that they are worth the investment. There is a cost to keeping citizens informed, but the costs of not doing so are much higher!

READ MORE AND REPRINT

Download a two-page PDF from the Public Notice Resource Center: "Why Public Notice Should Remain in Newspapers"