Comments about ‘Keep legal notices in papers’

Though some good points are made, it should be pointed out that newspapers have a vested interest in keeping these paid announcements. They will lose revenue if this bill passes. I'm not saying that fact should drive the discussion, but it needs to be part of the judgment call. We need to be upfront about all the reasons the papers claim they oppose this bill.

The newspapers cost the taxpayers nothing. That's just not true. The cost of the legal notice is paid for by taxpayers.

Duh! Simply use smaller print!

A friend of mine got pregnant out of wedlock years ago. The guy abandoned her, she kept the baby and a few years after got married. Her new husband decided to adopt her child.

She told me they were required to put a legal notice in a newspaper to give the father a right to contest the adoption.

She had met him in Salt Lake City, and by that time who knows where he was. They decided to put a legal notice in a small davis county news paper. I asked her if that was legal, she said yes.

I don't think it made a difference to the father either way, he obviously wasn't interested, but it struck me as odd that a legal notice was required to protect his rights, but the notice could be put into a paper wherein there was virtually no chance of him seeing the notice.

The author of this needs to get over himself. What makes him think that the Deseret News website is so special and so much easier to navigate than other news sources? The recent changes of having to click more to see a full list of stories makes it less user friendly IMO. Plus, this site features an overzealous moderator(s) who seem to arbitrarily refuse postings that deal with certain topics, preventing a real dialog from taking place among readers.

DNews are hypocrites. They bang the drum with one hand about less government and lower spending, but when it's about their own wallets, well...

I think the D-news might be a little self serving with this editorial. But they aren't hypocrites, they pretty much made the point it was cheaper to keep the notices in the paper.

It seems like a real compromise could be reached by having the state make a daily file available to the papers for print publication. The papers could then meet their public service mission and reduce their own costs by dealing with just one source rather than hundreds.

Have you tried looking through the legal notices on this website? The search engine errors out and won't let you see more than the first few. DN definitely wants you to buy the paper to read the legals.

Having used this website and government websites I have to say that this is not one bit easier to use than what the state puts out.

If the papers really are not afraid of the competition - if they honestly believe their are opposing this on public service grounds - they should simply offer to post any legal notices they receive on the state website so that their service complies with the new law (assuming it passes). If the law were amended to stipulate that the legal notices website allow bulk uploads of legal notices from entities such as newspapers, and also allow a feed or other source for newspapers to print, or otherwise republish the notices on that site (if they so choose) then I can see no reason for newspapers to object - besides the revenue competition.