Obama’s Cost-Cutting Will Hit Newspapers When They’re Down

A fact sheet released Monday by the Obama Administration showcases a $6.7 million proposed cut in newspaper advertising by the Dept. of Justice.

Publishers far and wide trying to get up off the floor are wincing from the Obama Administration’s kick.  It’s going to be interesting in 90 days to see if this one is still in the government waste column.

The advertising is tied to public notices around the U.S. Marshals Service Asset Forfeiture Program.  Rather than post these notices in newspapers around the country, the plan is to move them to the Internet.

The Justice Dept. and Obama Administration should be lauded for this move as a business tactic.  From the smallest local governments to Uncle Sam, tens of millions are spent annually on newspaper advertising in the form of public notices.  Newspaper associations in every state have lobbied effectively for years to ensure that the folks who buy their ink by the barrel get to sell some of it government.  There are big questions about whether newspaper ads are the best system for public notices.  Print ads are expensive when compared with the miniscule cost of just posting on already existing government websites.  And, unfortunately, newspaper readership is declining.

As a political move?  Well that remains to be seen.  Where I write from in Ohio, I can tell you that the state of Ohio’s government is only willing to talk about moving public notices to the Web.  Two recent government reform efforts by Gov. Ted Strickland’s administration – procurement and construction reform – were public-private initiatives to create more accountability, efficiency and transparency in government operations.  Each reform panel identified newspaper advertising, currently mandated for certain state procurements and construction activities, as unnecessary in today’s Web-savvy world.  As dozens of these panels’ recommendations made their way into legislation and executive orders, doing away with print ads did not.

Finally, let’s consider timing.  I think the kids would call this: Epic Fail.  Monday was ‘Pulitzer Day,’ the day when the famous journalism prizes are awarded – in a year when the daily journalism industry, aka the daily newspaper, is under assault.  While the government literally doles out trillions to unworthy and undeserving financial institutions due to extreme financial conditions, it tells newspapers to go pound sand.

Moving government notices from high cost print advertising to the lower cost Internet makes a lot of sense.  It would make even more sense to do it a couple of years from now when if the newspaper industry hasn’t figured out its 21st century business model the loss of revenue will be well deserved.