• Re: Right to refuse advertising?

    From Peter@21:1/5 to All on Sat Dec 24 21:31:46 2022
    I live in Bend Oregon. EO Media has a monopoly on the three major print media publishing in Central Oregon, 2 newspapers and one Nickel ads. They are refusing to take my ad which presents opposing viewpoints to a constant stream of nonsense. The issue
    is there is no other place to advertise. The ad was a small classified ad. The main paper has total control over the news and opinion and it is all on one side of the issues. There must be something about monopolies I can legally use to attack their
    rejection. It looks like the last posts on this thread are more than 20 years old...maybe someone will pick it up....

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  • From Barry Gold@21:1/5 to Peter on Sun Dec 25 05:57:15 2022
    On 12/24/2022 9:31 PM, Peter wrote:
    I live in Bend Oregon. EO Media has a monopoly on the three major print media publishing in Central Oregon, 2 newspapers and one Nickel ads. They are refusing to take my ad which presents opposing viewpoints to a constant stream of nonsense. The
    issue is there is no other place to advertise. The ad was a small classified ad. The main paper has total control over the news and opinion and it is all on one side of the issues. There must be something about monopolies I can legally use to attack
    their rejection. It looks like the last posts on this thread are more than 20 years old...maybe someone will pick it up....

    The EO Media Group is a private entity. They have pretty much complete
    freedom to publish what they want(*), and to refuse to publish what they
    don't want. That comes from the First Amendment to the US Constitution:

    Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a
    redress of grievances.

    There *might* be an exception for a "Newspaper of public record" -- some
    states might require them to accept all "legal notice"-type ads:
    "Not responsible for any debts but my own"
    "George Williams and Frank March, doing business as "Wilmarch Porcelain"





    --
    I do so have a memory. It's backed up on DVD... somewhere...

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  • From Rick@21:1/5 to All on Sun Dec 25 06:21:44 2022
    "Peter" wrote in message news:cd0ba9f9-ab55-4b09-9cc1-be601aaa03b7n@googlegroups.com...

    I live in Bend Oregon. EO Media has a monopoly on the three major print >media publishing in Central Oregon, 2 newspapers and one Nickel ads. They >are refusing to take my ad which presents opposing viewpoints to a constant >stream of nonsense. The issue is there is no other place to advertise.
    The ad was a small classified ad. The main paper has total control over
    the news and opinion and it is all on one side of the issues. There must
    be something about monopolies I can legally use to attack their rejection.
    It looks like the last posts on this thread are more than 20 years >old...maybe someone will pick it up....

    Freedom of the Press doesn't mean you have carte blanche to demand any newspaper publish your views. It means that you, as a citizen, have a right
    to start your own newspaper or self-publish to present your views. Also, in the modern world where virtually anyone can get access to the internet, you
    can easily find ways to express your views online.

    --

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  • From John Levine@21:1/5 to ptworkshopmusic@gmail.com on Sun Dec 25 11:50:45 2022
    It appears that Peter <ptworkshopmusic@gmail.com> said:
    I live in Bend Oregon. EO Media has a monopoly on the three major print media publishing in Central Oregon, 2
    newspapers and one Nickel ads. They are refusing to take my ad which presents opposing viewpoints to a constant
    stream of nonsense. ...

    In 1974 in Miami Herald Publishing Co. v. Tornillo (1974), the Supreme
    Court unanimously voided a Florida law which a right to reply to
    political candidates, that if the newspaper attacked the candidate, it
    had to publish the candidate's reply. Nope.

    That was a very different court. I suppose we will see what the
    current court thinks about publishers and compelled speech when it
    considers the Florida anti-moderation law, which was blocked by a
    sensible 11th circuit opinion, and the Texas anti-moderation law which
    was upheld by a deranged 5th circuit opinion. A lot of the current
    court seems to want to stick it to big Internet companies, but it's
    hard to see how they could do that without also screwing up 1st
    amendment law for everyone else. (No, there is no way to make Facebook
    a "common carrier", whatever you might imagine that to mean in
    practice.)

    I can imagine an interesting corner case if a newspaper of record
    refused a legal notice. For example, here in New York, when you set up
    an LLC, you have to publish a notice in two newspapers of record in
    your county. In my county, there are exactly two such newspapers and
    if one refused to publish it, you'd be out of luck. But I expect that
    if such a case ended up in court, the court would tell the government
    to change the requirement rather than to force the paper to publish it.

    In practice it seems hard to imagine a realistic legal notice
    scenario. Counties publish lists of upcoming real estate foreclosure
    sales and maybe if the paper's owner was on the list, he might not
    want to publish, but the sale would go ahead anyway.

    --
    Regards,
    John Levine, johnl@taugh.com, Primary Perpetrator of "The Internet for Dummies",
    Please consider the environment before reading this e-mail. https://jl.ly

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  • From Stuart O. Bronstein@21:1/5 to John Levine on Mon Dec 26 11:35:51 2022
    "John Levine" <johnl@taugh.com> wrote:
    Peter <ptworkshopmusic@gmail.com> said:

    I live in Bend Oregon. EO Media has a monopoly on the three major
    print media publishing in Central Oregon, 2 newspapers and one
    Nickel ads. They are refusing to take my ad which presents
    opposing viewpoints to a constant stream of nonsense. ...

    In 1974 in Miami Herald Publishing Co. v. Tornillo (1974), the
    Supreme Court unanimously voided a Florida law which a right to
    reply to political candidates, that if the newspaper attacked the
    candidate, it had to publish the candidate's reply. Nope.

    That was a very different court. I suppose we will see what the
    current court thinks about publishers and compelled speech when it
    considers the Florida anti-moderation law, which was blocked by a
    sensible 11th circuit opinion, and the Texas anti-moderation law
    which was upheld by a deranged 5th circuit opinion. A lot of the
    current court seems to want to stick it to big Internet companies,
    but it's hard to see how they could do that without also screwing
    up 1st amendment law for everyone else. (No, there is no way to
    make Facebook a "common carrier", whatever you might imagine that
    to mean in practice.)

    That's not a phrase I hear very often, "sensible 11th circuit
    opinion."

    I can imagine an interesting corner case if a newspaper of record
    refused a legal notice. For example, here in New York, when you
    set up an LLC, you have to publish a notice in two newspapers of
    record in your county. In my county, there are exactly two such
    newspapers and if one refused to publish it, you'd be out of luck.
    But I expect that if such a case ended up in court, the court
    would tell the government to change the requirement rather than to
    force the paper to publish it.

    What does it take to become a "newspaper or record" in New York? In
    California a paper has to apply and get a court to recognize it as a
    "newspaper of general circulation." Applying to publish legal
    notices implies recognition of the duty to publish legal notices.
    Though you're right, the current Court has done things I think are
    loopy and inconsistent with recognized precedent.

    In practice it seems hard to imagine a realistic legal notice
    scenario. Counties publish lists of upcoming real estate
    foreclosure sales and maybe if the paper's owner was on the list,
    he might not want to publish, but the sale would go ahead anyway.

    --
    Stu
    http://DownToEarthLawyer.com

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  • From John Levine@21:1/5 to All on Mon Dec 26 15:07:08 2022
    According to Stuart O. Bronstein <spamtrap@lexregia.com>:
    That's not a phrase I hear very often, "sensible 11th circuit
    opinion."

    Well, compared to the 5th, pretty much anything seems sensible

    What does it take to become a "newspaper or record" in New York? In >California a paper has to apply and get a court to recognize it as a >"newspaper of general circulation." ...

    The New York LLC law (sec 206) says the newspapers are designated by
    the county clerk, one daily and one weekly. If there is no designated
    paper, you can publish in an adjoining county. I suppose if one of
    our newspapers misbehaved the clerk could un-designate them and we
    could use an adjacent county newspaper but the whole thing seems
    pretty far fetched.

    The next county over where Watkins Glen is located is so small that it
    has no daily paper at all, so I guess they use ours.

    --
    Regards,
    John Levine, johnl@taugh.com, Primary Perpetrator of "The Internet for Dummies",
    Please consider the environment before reading this e-mail. https://jl.ly

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