NOTICE, BEFORE IT’S GONE

In commentary Wednesday on the OpEd Page, UMaine journalism professor Shannon Martin expertly dismantled a proposal alleged to save $1.5 million in state funding by canceling public notices in newspapers. She did this by describing its negative effect on open government, its lack of accountability, difficulties with accessing Internet postings, and the unanticipated costs of carrying out this change. All true, but the bill may be even worse than that.

Our conflict of interest in this issue is obvious, even if the advertising revenues it affects are a tiny fraction of any newspapers’ total. We would point out, however, that LD 1878 doesn’t merely provide Internet postings as an alternative for notifying residents about government activities. The bill actually bans newspaper notification even if agencies had determined this was the most effective means to reach people affected by the subject of a public action.

The bill is a problem for residents of any age, but the demographics of this are clear: Older residents are more likely to read newspapers and less likely to read the Internet. The bill makes no allowance for this when an issue affecting seniors is before the Legislature or a government agency. If older residents want to know about upcoming hearings under this proposal, they must first anticipate that the subject is up for debate and then search online for an as-yet unnamed Web site. This changes the dynamic of the government reaching out to the public to describe its business to forcing the public to find notification in cyberspace.

LD 1878 also fails only as an attempt to save money. It expects the state to post and regularly update Web sites, to operate a toll-free phone line, and to handle the questions of anyone who calls about information that would have appeared in public notices, and it must do this without incurring any additional cost. Hasn’t the state learned through its Medicaid fiasco that underestimating computer costs leads to both disaster and additional cost?

One of the benefits of the Internet is that it generally adds choices for obtaining information. LD 1878 uses the Internet to take away choices. In an era when government itself is demanding greater transparency for business, to make itself more opaque by passing measures that lead to excluding public access to the government is dangerous and shortsighted.