Out With A Bang

Clearly a court ruling in far-away Maine has absolutely no jurisdiction whatsoever on these shores.

So it can’t be deemed a ‘land-mark’ moment in the history of newspaper advertising in any strict legal sense.

But, neverthless, it still ought to make waves on this side of the Atlantic; if nothing else, it demonstrates the temper of the times…

http://www.buzzmachine.com/2009/02/04/one-more-kick-in-the-kidneys-for-papers-the-end-of-legal-ads/

Ms Anderson, of Newspaper Society fame, could certainly do without it after her reaction to Lord Carter’s ‘Digital Britain’ report last week included a specific demand that local council advertising continued to be routed through local newspapers…

“Among the range of measures the Newpaper Society has asked the Government to act on are relaxation of media ownership regulations, restrictions on public sector publishing, encouragement of public sector advertising in regional and local media and curbs on the BBC’s local activities…” said Lynne Anderson…

Read the original report and, clearly, we’re not talking about planning notices or footpath changes… it was far more entertaining than that. It was one individual’s law-suit served against another…

http://kennebecjournal.mainetoday.com/news/local/5904699.html

… but one served in a local newspaper.

Only trouble being that Daniel B Deacon wasn’t ‘local’ any more. He’d moved. And that by publishing said lawsuit only in the Lincoln County News due process had not been served.

Should have gone to FaceBook…

Read the Judge’s actual remarks and he’s crossing a rubicon…

“When newspapers were the only means of print mass communication, and when newspapers were more widely and intensely read than is now the case … Because service by publication has become less likely to achieve actual notice of a lawsuit, it is also less likely to meet the requirements of due process.”

… that just because it was published in a local newspaper doesn’t mean you can expect anyone to see it; that ‘due process’ only applied when newspapers ‘were the only means of print mass circulation…’; when the Lincoln County News and, by extension, the Beccles & Bungay Journal, were ‘more widely and intensely read than is now the case…’

It has been coming; certainly in the States… it was a block we wandered round last May, in fairness…

http://outwithabang.rickwaghorn.co.uk/?p=66

… and one of our heroes of that time, the Republican senator Robert C Wonderling and his line…

“Local officials, not Harrisburg, know how to best serve their constituents, he said, and they could still choose newspapers for legal notices.

“All this legislation does is provide local governments another option to publicize information,” Wonderling said, adding that he supported letting “the free market of content availability drive the decisions.”

Which is all Associate Justice William Clifford has done in this case – he’s let the ‘free market of content availability drive the decision [ruling]…

What is fascinating in that original case from last summer is to find Ms Anderson’s oppo pleading the same case that the Newspaper Society is to their lordships now…

‘The best line, however, comes from the woman charged by the local Pennsylvannia Newspaper Association to defend their position to the hilt.

“[Deborah] Musselman acknowledged that legislation would hurt the industry financially. And that, she said, would harm everyone.

“If you hurt our revenue, you are hurting our ability to do our job under the First Amendment,” Musselman said. “It sounds corny, but that is what we believe.”

‘You’re right Debs, it does sound corny. It also makes you sound as if you’re pleading for a state subsidy for an ailing newspaper industry …