Don't blink, it's National Newspaper Week

Hardly a day or week, and certainly no months, go by without it being some sort of special time for some group or other. To prove my point, October hosts Red Ribbon Week, and the month itself is Breast Cancer Awareness month and, in Britain, Black History Month. This week, from Oct. 5-11, is also National Newspaper Week, a few days to sit and ponder the importance of public notices and newspapers themselves.

In the modern media climate, it seems almost antiquated. After all, public agencies and government bodies have Web sites, Facebook accounts, Twitter feeds. Why do these groups still require the services of newspapers? Because, like the old joke, they're black and white and read all over.

And the most boring portion of papers — the legal notices — most certainly don't demand more than a casual glance from many readers. But that is where we err, as the public notices are possibly the most important, yet simplest, way that newspapers help preserve democracy.

For those of you who don't know — and I'll cop to being one of them until college — public agencies pay to place notices of things like meetings and decisions and protest periods in the newspaper that serves the area affected by whatever is going on. They're required to and they spend our taxpayer dollars to do it. Plenty of things may happen under the radar in government, but barely any of them happen without at least a legal notice.

The 440 acres of state-owned land in Woods Bay that a community group is currently working to keep public is a prime example. A local resident saw a legal notice about the potential for the parcel to be placed in the Department of Natural Resource and Conservation's land banking program and they called their legislator. Days later a meeting was organized to protest the decision and now, more than six months later, all parties are working on a way to keep the land open for all of us.

The legislator who helped organize the meeting, outgoing Senator from District 5, Bill Jones, told me a the time that the link from Edd Blackler (who saw the notice), to him, to the Eagle (we ran a story publicizing the meeting), was a "fragile chain." True, but it was something. And it would have certainly not existed had it not been for the DNRC's legally required notice.

I am guilty of not always reading the legals despite the fact that they are a prime location for story ideas. They are printed in tiny type, they are often times about virtually nothing and they are almost guaranteed to be more boring than an art appreciation class, but they're essential nonetheless.

So take some time and read the fine print. Everyone knows that's where people put the important stuff anyway.

—Alex Strickland