North Carolina is reviewing the idea of dropping requirements that legal advertisements run in local newspapers. The North Carolina Press Association’s ad campaign, which featured a confused, elderly woman, probably didn’t do much to burnish the industry’s image as a place to reach younger readers, but it made a solid point that many people do not have adequate access to the Internet or the skills and equipment to use it.
And if you are at all concerned that the hodgepodge of website designs and information technology systems used by local governments may lead to some confusion even among those tech savvy enough to use them, your concerns are well grounded.
A recent perusal has underscored that even here in the most wired spot in the state, our local governments have trouble keeping up with their own sites.
Carrboro’s site, for instance, still lists Elizabeth Dole as senator, Mike Easley as governor and has a featured list of art galleries more than half of which have either gone out of business or moved.
In sections of Chapel Hill’s site, Cam Hill, defeated for re-election almost two years ago, is still listed as a council member.
Orange County, which has a real clunker of a site, has a number of broken links and on the commissioners’ page lists the goals for 2007 but not ‘08 or’09.
We’re not trying to sound picky here, since we understand full well the struggle to fix links and keep a site updated. The point is that government is supposed to facilitate the flow of information to the public, not impede it or confuse people. Transferring an important legal function to a system that is already challenged and to a technology that is not universally available is unwise, impractical and undemocratic.
(In case you’re wondering if we’re being a little self-serving here, please note that this paper is not subscription-based and thus not eligible for legal ads.)