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- Cities, counties, small publishers should rally in favor
- SB 6240 would change the definition of "legal" newspaper in Washington
- OLYMPIA (1-19-00)--For 40 years, a "legal" newspaper has been one which is composed and printed in the same building that houses its editorial offices.
- In other words, if you own a $3-million press, and $2-million worth of composing equipment, you have the privilege of contracting with local municipalities to print their legal notices. If you don't, you're out of luck.
- So sayeth the existing RCW 65.16.020.
- Language in this RCW was brought to us in 1960 by the same folks who tell us, "If you don't like what we say in our newspaper, get one of your own." Right. Try borrowing millions for equipment --and a facility to house it-- on a reporter's salary!
- In the past 40 years, establishment-newspaper readership has plummeted. Former readers have learned these opulent rags carefully cull out vital information which profoundly affects people's lives and livelihoods. You'll never, for example, see local IRS activities covered with the same gusto as local bowling leagues.
- In place of vital information, newspapers today substitute "fluff". News is insipid, politically correct, dumbed down, canned, and incomplete. Metro newspapers pride themselves in their "gatekeeper" role--a euphemism for "peons just don't need to know that--at least not while they can still do something about it."
- All but a couple of Washington's 23 daily metro papers are controlled by conglomerates far outside state borders. It's all big money and deep pockets. These reptiles' interests are different from those of the average person, despite what they say--and they have an oversized voice to say what they will. Yet, big metro papers rarely, if ever, have to compete for legal-ad printing contracts bringing them millions in revenues.
- The state's small-town weeklies are decades old. Few have ever faced local competition for legal-ad printing contracts. Calling themselves "newspapers of record" they are bought and sold with the buyers' understanding they have dibs on all local legal advertising. It's a racket if there is no bidding. The city of Sunnyside alone spends $30,000-50,000 a year for advertising. Competitive bidders could do the job for less. But they're stymied by RCW 65.16.020.
- And that's not all.
- When the Freedom of Information Act is invoked to federal agencies, "non-legal" newspapers have to pay through the nose for federal documents. The Yakima Valley News recently had to pay $70 for info federal agency staff simply had to spit out of their computers. It arrived in one manilla envelope. Seventy bucks.
- As a "newspaper of record" YVN could have paid nothing for the information which it then provided for its readers.
- Senate Bill 6240, recently submitted to the Washington Legislature, could confer "legal" status on general-interest newspapers willing to dig for and faithfully document solid news and information today's insipid metro and weekly newspapers will never request, and will never publish. And it could save governments in Washington state a whopping amount of advertising dollars.
- SB 6240 is an "Act amending RCW 65.16.020". It would open up the definition of "legal newspapers" to include those published on the Internet, and those which outsource their printing.
- Cities, school districts, port districts, counties and all municipalities which have been forced to go to a "single source" provider will be able to contract with a wider variety of newspaper vendors when SB6240 passes. LOCAL ELECTED officials will decide which news vendor they want to contract with to produce legal advertising. There's nothing in 6240 that stops them from contracting with their present publisher. But with 6240, they will have a choice they've never had before.
- Old-line, big-money, publisher protectionists are rallying their troops to defeat SB 6240. They like their privileged status, despite their decades long decrease in real-news production. They consider such privileged status their due. It is not their due. They should compete for legal-ad contracts like anyone else.
- In full view of I-695, SB 6240 will save state and local governments multi-millions of dollars in ad revenues.
- --(LA)