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Brownsville Area School Board pulls advertising citing negative coverage as reason

By Natalie Bruzda nbruzda@heraldstandard.Com 3 min read

The Brownsville Area School Board voted on Wednesday to make another newspaper based in Westmoreland and Allegheny counties its newspaper of record after directors expressed dismay at a meeting last month about negative coverage in the Herald-Standard.

In past years, the Herald-Standard has been the district’s newspaper of record, which is where the school board agrees to list public notices about meetings and other school-related business.

There was no public discussion about the decision prior to or after the board made its unanimous decision; however, at the board’s November meeting, several board members threatened to pull legal advertising from the Herald-Standard.

“It seems like all we have in that paper is adversity,” said Board President Rocky Brashear. “Out of all the awards our students get, you see very little of it. Come December, we should take a look at that.”

Director Jeffery Bayne agreed.

“I mentioned that last year, and I hope we consider that again,” Bayne said.

In 2010, board directors had threatened to pull advertising from the Herald-Standard

Melissa Melewsky, media law counsel for the Pennsylvania NewsMedia Association, said on Thursday that public notice advertising is required to be placed in a “newspaper of general circulation” as defined by the Newspaper Advertising Act.

When the issue from the Brownsville school board was raised in 2010, Melewsky said that while school districts can choose any newspaper that circulates within the district’s subdivision, districts would want to ensure the taxpayers in that area have easy access to those notices.

“As far as public notice goes, the goal is to provide the maximum amount of public notice possible to the extent that a district can reach more readers. It makes more sense to reach as many readers as possible,” said Melewsky in an article that ran about the subject in 2010.

A newspaper of general circulation is defined by several characteristics, including: conveys reading or pictorial intelligence of passing events, local or general happenings, printing regularly or irregularly editorial comment, announcements, miscellaneous reading matter, commercial advertising, classified advertising, legal advertising, and other notices; is a newspaper issued daily, or not less than once a week; intended for general distribution and circulation to the public; and is sold at fixed prices per copy per week, per month or per annum.

“The Newspaper Advertising Act does not require the lowest cost papers to be utilized, only that a ‘newspaper of general circulation’ be used,” Melewsky said on Thursday.

District Business Manager Michael Gigliotti said he doesn’t recall school directors asking him to inquire about advertising rates at any other newspaper.

“We weren’t directed to do that,” Gigliotti said. “We (the administration) found out last (Wednesday) night.”

Over the past several years, the Herald-Standard has been the only media outlet to regularly cover Brownsville Area School Board meetings.

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