Home > Political Insider > Archives > 2008 > February > 28 > Entry
DEL.ICIO.USBlogwatch: Fight brewing over legal ads between on-line firms, newspapers
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Macon blogger Amy Morton is taking on state Sen. Cecil Staton (R-Macon) and his S.B. 391, which would require Secretary of State Karen Handel to hire a company to run a web site that publishes the legal ads that now go to local newspapers.
“I’d say that this bill is a not-so-thinly-veiled smack at [House Minority Leader] DuBose Porter [of Dublin] who owns several papers in rural Georgia if the truth were not a bit plainer,” writes Morton, a Democratic activist.
Global Notice, a California company, “has made $1,000 campaign contributions to both Staton and [state Sen. Chip] Rogers, two of the sponsors of the legislation,” she writes.
Comments
By James
February 28, 2008 9:04 AM | Link to this
What does she think is the source of any animosity between Staton and Porter? One’s in the Senate, the other in the House - they live at least 50 miles apart.
Like most Georgia Dems, Amy is seeing a ghost behind every tree since they lost power …
By Connie
February 28, 2008 1:54 PM | Link to this
This is an outrage. Thousands of people are losing their homes, many of them with no access to the internet. This state already affords no protection for homeowners. If I have your mortgage and I say that you are behind, all I have to do is send a letter and advertise your house in the paper for four weekends in a row and sell it on the steps of the courthouse on the first Tuesday of the month. If you say you are not behind, you must get a lawyer, go to court and get an injunction or file bankruptcy. Because of the unreliability of the US mail, many people do not know their house is in foreclosure until they see in in the paper. And now you @#! are going to take even that little bit of protection away. For a $1000 campaign contribution!!!!!! I hope they rot in hell.
By Thomas
February 29, 2008 6:45 AM | Link to this
Morton and others should read this bill before offering crticism that is misleading at best and downright false at worst.
The bill (SB 391) does not even deal with notices that are required to be in newspapers.
http://www.legis.state.ga.us/legis/200708/versions/sb391CommitteesubLC219788S_4.htm
will take you to a copy of the bill.
Sounds like the newspapers are worried about their monopoly, but this bill does not impact them.