Pennsylvania lawmakers say they’re modernizing Legal Notice advertising with House Bill 1291—but in reality, they’re just protecting a costly print monopoly at taxpayer expense.
Proposed legislation in the state Capitol aims to address Legal Notice advertising but it misses so many marks, it must be scrapped and rethought to keep in mind the spirit of the original law.
Legal Notices, if you’re unaware, are essentially government announcements of important actions they’re taking. Public meeting dates (and changes to those dates), zoning hearings, budgets, new ordinances, requests for bids on public contracts, and Sheriff sales of real estate are just some of the more notable Legal Notice advertisements.
Right now, Legal Notice advertisements must be published, by law, in a “newspaper of general circulation”.
HB 1291 would allow existing ‘newspapers of general circulation’—in Schuylkill County, like the Pottsville Republican Herald or Times-News—to publish Legal Notices in digital format on their websites and on a statewide public notice website in addition to their printed editions.
Online-only local news outlets, however, would be excluded from publishing these notices as long as these traditional newspapers remain in print.
It’s meant to modernize an increasingly archaic law because traditional news outlets are printing less and less. What the proposed bill does not address is how these traditional news outlets are being read less and less, too, and that’s how this new legislation doesn’t match the spirit of the original law on Legal Notice advertising.
As it’s currently written, HB 1291 would not allow local news sites like Coal Region Canary, The Shenandoah Sentinel, or Skook News from publishing Legal Notice advertisements and it counting toward the government’s requirement to publish these announcements.
Unless the Republican Herald and Times News cease all production, and that seems rather unlikely, exclusively online outlets like Coal Region Canary would never get a chance to bid for Legal Notice advertisements. Even if The Canary did, we’d publish them all for $0, assuming we can maintain the ads we currently serve on our regular news pages.
Now, while some of our online competition has made public pitches to end the monopoly the legacy media has on Legal Notice advertising, we’re making a slightly different argument while still full-throat opposing HB 1291.
The spirit of the original law is to ensure government transparency through the publication of Legal Notices in a newspaper. When the original bill was written, a newspaper was the best way to reach the general public at once.
That is definitely not the case anymore. Now, anyone can be a publisher and the newspaper may be the last place someone would go to get their message to a mass audience.
To match the spirit of the original law regarding Legal Notice advertising, the proposed legislation that makes the most sense would be to require all such notices to appear very clearly and prominently on a government’s website. Municipal governments should be required to publish on their own website and their County’s website.
All the public needs to know is that this is the destination to learn of the latest Public Notice advertisements. If they know that, then that is where they’ll go to read them.
Legal Notice Advertising Spending
What our proposal does is not only simplifies and modernizes the Legal Notice advertising law, it saves taxpayers a lot more money than they’re probably aware.
Coal Region Canary recently submitted a Right to Know request with Schuylkill County government for their advertising spending in 2024. This included advertising spending of all types across all departments within County government and we did the work of separating Legal Notice advertising from the rest.
In 2024, Schuylkill County government spent $177,108.88 on Legal Notice advertising. Much of that went to the local daily newspaper and the company that owns it, MediaNews Group. Here is a breakdown of the spending by news organization:
- MediaNews Group/Pottsville Republican Herald: $83,694.32
- 21st Century Media: $57,383.22
- Schuylkill Legal Record: $28,441.25
- Times News: $6,310.43
- Others: $1,279.66
Keep in mind, this is just Schuylkill County government. These figures don’t include your local municipality and school board spending on Legal Notice ads, which they’re also required to do.
And the proposed HB 1291 does nothing to require legacy news organizations from lowering their prices if they can print these Legal Notices in an online format.
House Bill 1291 fails to reflect the realities of today’s media landscape and neglects the true spirit of transparency it claims to uphold.
Continuing to pour taxpayer money into legacy print newspapers, whose audiences shrink by the day, simply does not make sense.
A better alternative—and one that truly honors the intent of public notice laws—would be to require governments to clearly publish Legal Notices directly on their own websites, ensuring every resident knows exactly where to find them without relying on dwindling print circulation.
It’s time for Harrisburg to scrap HB 1291 and draft a modern, sensible solution that puts transparency first, not media monopolies.
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Melinda
June 22, 2025 at 7:24 am
Great article, Canary! Breath of fresh air, common sense approach!