Public notices are news!
By STEVE HAYNES
President, National Newspaper Association
Steve Haynes is publisher of The Oberlin (KS) Herald and president of Nor'West Newspapers, which operates six community newspapers in northwest Kansas. He is a former president of the Kansas and Colorado Press associations.
The front pages of our nation's newspapers are more colorful and compelling than ever. From the smallest county-seat weekly to the largest city tabloid, action shots reach out to the reader, trying to draw you in.
We try our best to help you stay informed, even as you blog, GPS and phone-video your way through the world.
But while there's plenty of interesting news in the front, I find the back of the paper even more important. I invite the reader to join me there.
The public notices in most newspapers appear in the classified section. In some states, that is because state law considers them classified ads. In others, it's simply tradition. They've been there for all of our lives. Lewis and Clark used public notices. Most state constitutions were drawn up with the help of public notices.
Now they are so much part of our tradition that we sometimes forget them. These notices are part of the three-legged stool of democracy: open public meetings, public records and public notices.
They let us know about tax increases, zoning changes and property foreclosures — when they are allowed to work.
Washington Gov. Christine Gregoire drew attention to these notices this year when she signed a bill requiring her governments — state and local — to resume using public notices to inform citizens. The law she signed was a reaction to a state Supreme Court decision involving the owners of a small business whose property in south Tacoma was condemned to make way for a train station parking lot. The public notice provided by the transit authority was posted solely on the agency's own website. There it announced condemnation of private property. The property owners never saw the notice. They sued, but the Washington Supreme Court said notice on an obscure website was enough.
The legislature thought otherwise. It now requires notices to be mailed to property owners — and a notice to be put back into the newspaper, where people will see it. As the state of Washington has acknowledged, people have a right to know. And notices are meant to be noticed.
Newspaper notices also help get people back together with something they have lost — unclaimed property.
In most states, an unclaimed property fund exists in the state treasury for assets in long-forgotten bank accounts, uncollected insurance claims and personal property, all belonging to someone who has not yet found it or laid claim to it. Not surprisingly, some state governments happily sit on these assets. In the days of more vigorous newspaper notices, readers could pore over interesting catalogues of unfound heirs and uncashed checks — and let their friends know of an unfound bounty. Today, in many states, notice of these funds has shrunk to a website page buried in a state computer.
A federal judge in California has stepped into that state's hoarding of these rich deposits. He stopped the state from continuing to rake in the contents of abandoned lockboxes and the like. He demanded a better effort by the state to find rightful owners. (The list of unclaimed property in that case included a Medal of Honor and Navy Cross awarded to a World War II hero who is buried in Arlington National Cemetery.)
One big problem with California's program is the lack of newspaper lists of the property. The public's right to know is served when we can see for ourselves what is going on. Other states should pay attention to this lesson of government accountability: a government website doesn't do the job.
The Internet is going to be an important channel for delivery of newspaper information. It also will help newspapers provide broader public notice. But the Internet must not become a tool of secrecy for governments.
Washington's governor and legislature understand this principle. The California judge knows visible public notice is important. Newspapers provide public notices week after week where people can see them, not locked away on some obscure website.
That's why so many readers are like me. We read the paper from back to front.
