Put public notices on your front burner

Expect to fight tooth and nail for public notices in the upcoming Texas legislative session. 
There’s an old saying: “Best to be loaded for bear when hunting squirrel.” The meaning is simple: always be prepared for the worst. Things can go from a nice day in the woods to downright deadly in the blink of an eye. 

By Leonard Woolsey, TPA President

This applies to public notices. Ask our colleagues in Florida, where the legislature worked with newspapers and communities for years on a program to assure transparency of public notices through newspapers’ print and digital platforms. The situation appeared stable — until it didn’t. Poof. In a blink, public notices were gone from newspapers.
What would happen to your paper if this happens in Texas? Would it be game over? Texas publishers need to realize that retaining public notice is one of the most critical fights we’ll face in the coming session. And we all need to help in that fight.
Florida proves you never know what’s lurking around the next tree. So how do we – that means you, too – load up for bear in for the upcoming session? By making your public notices more accessible through your print paper, your website and the statewide TPA/Column public notice site.
TPA has fought off the public notice bear for years, but the battle gets tougher every legislative session. We can’t expect to keep winning without the help of all our members. Here are three things you can do to retain your public notices: 
 1. Upload your public notices to the TPA/Column statewide website. This new site is one of the most potent shells in the TPA ammo bag as we battle municipalities pushing to limit notices to their own governmental websites. We need to confidently present an up-and-running, one-stop solution to public notices in an evolving communications environment. A poorly populated website devoid of your notices just won’t cut it – we need 100% participation.
Make uploading public notices a mandatory step in putting out your newspaper. Think of it this way: You routinely provide publisher’s affidavits when you publish certain public notices. It’s an important requirement for the third-party, inalterable watchdog verification that newspapers provide and governmental bodies can not.
Uploading your notices to our aggregated statewide site strengthens newspapers’ crucial verification role in government transparency. It makes you an even stronger watchdog.
2. Stress transparency and the importance of independent public notices with elected officials. Years ago, someone taught me the value of the spoon-feeding technique in sales – a perfect tool when dealing with elected officials. When you talk to a local official, stress the importance of newspaper public notices to government transparency.
This can be a passing sentence or an anecdote about how a particular public notice filled council chambers with energized citizens. Discussing the issue frequently helps you create a cumulative body of work over time rather than a frantic sales push when your back is up against the wall.
3. Promote public notices throughout your products. Guess what: I come up short on this one, too. We all appreciate the importance of public notices, but do we promote that importance to our community?
In addition to running house ads in print, how about incorporating a link to public notices in your daily or weekly newsletters? 
How about an entire e-newsletter dedicated to public notices? Could you write a news story or a column about a particularly interesting public notice, with a promo to the notice in the article?
I’ll admit I can do everything in the preceding list better than I do it today — and I will. Will you join me?
Public notices are a crucial part of our responsibility as the Fourth Estate. We need to be loaded for bear as we go into session.
If we limit ourselves to squirrel shot, the bear will win.
Don’t let that happen. Act now.