It's World Press Freedom Day; in U.S., open government is a three-legged stool, including public-notice ads in papers - Entrepreneur Generations

Today is World Press Freedom Day, a global observance that is especially pertinent this year because of Russia's invasion of Ukraine and its denial of a free press to Russians, as well as the increasingly bad treatment of journalists and news media by authoritarian governments.

In the U.S., at every level of government, journalists and their paymasters are fighting for open government and the sustainability of their operations. Open government in this country is a three-legged stool: open records, open meetings and public-notice laws that make government tell you what it's doing (spending your money) or might do (granting a permit).

That third leg is often forgotten in national debates about freedom of information, but it's more important than ever because public-notice advertising has become a much more important part of the revenue of local newspapers, which are the main fact-finders in the U.S. Local governments are asking nearly every state legislature to cut back on such advertising, and Florida just passed a sweeping bill that could spell trouble for newspapers.

So, as we observe World Press Freedom Day, let's remember that someone has to pay for journalism. Increasingly, that is the audience rather than advertisers, since the digital era has destroyed old business models. But if the audience pays too much, it will become too narrow, so newspapers need public-notice advertising. And not just for the money, but for the information, which is harder to get because they have fewer reporters to dig it out. For more information, go to the Public Notice Resource Center.

And, if you want to help the Institute for Rural Journalism and Community Issues, which publishes The Rural Blog and helps rural journalists in other ways, you can donate by clicking here.

from The Rural Blog https://ift.tt/NPSEIYs It's World Press Freedom Day; in U.S., open government is a three-legged stool, including public-notice ads in papers - Entrepreneur Generations

Posted by Entrepreneur Generations

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