{"id":4392,"date":"2023-12-22T11:37:53","date_gmt":"2023-12-22T15:37:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/townunderground.com\/?p=4392"},"modified":"2023-12-22T11:37:53","modified_gmt":"2023-12-22T15:37:53","slug":"media-nation-nh-newspaper-publisher-fined-for-620-running-unlabeled-political-ads","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/townunderground.com\/?p=4392","title":{"rendered":"Media Nation: NH newspaper publisher fined for $620 running unlabeled political ads"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

From Media Nation<\/a>
Dan Kennedy<\/a>
December 20, 2023<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The saga of Deb Paul, the New Hampshire newspaper publisher who was threatened with six years in prison for running improperly labeled political ads, has finally come to an end, reports Damien Fisher<\/a> of InDepthNH. On Wednesday, Derry District Court Judge Kerry Steckowych fined Paul $620, which adds up to $124 for each of the five counts the judge had convicted her of on Dec. 7. Paul had originally been charged with six counts, which carry a maximum sentence of a year in prison and a $2,000 fine for each violation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Paul publishes the Londonderry Times and, at the time that the offenses took place, was also the publisher of the Nutfield News and the Tri-Town Times, which have since folded. Under New Hampshire law, it is a crime to publish political advertising without labeling it as such. The First Amendment allows for some regulation of paid political ads, but the law making such minor violations a crime rather than a civil offense strikes me as excessive, as does the zeal of the state attorney general, John Formella, who let the possibility of prison time hang over Paul\u2019s head for nearly a year and a half.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Judge Steckowych deserves credit for meting out a punishment that is more or less in line with a civil offense. And it\u2019s time for the state legislature to intervene and reform the law so that other publishers are no longer in danger of being locked up for what amounts to a minor campaign finance violation.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Read the complete article HERE<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Related Posts:<\/strong>
Londonderry Times Editorial: We are not in Kansas Free Deb Paul<\/a>
Granite Grok: Another Unlawful Arrest in New Hampshire?<\/a>
Attorney General\u2019s Election Law Unit Announces Londonderry Arrest<\/a>
Press Release: Newspaper Publisher Debra Paul Found Guilty of Election Law Violations<\/a>
NH Journal: AG Gets Election Law Conviction Against Small-Town Newspaper, but Illegal Mail Case Languishes<\/a>
Media Nation: The NH political-ad story is getting weirder and weirder<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

From Media NationDan KennedyDecember 20, 2023 The saga of Deb Paul, the New Hampshire newspaper publisher who was threatened with six years in prison for running improperly labeled political ads, has finally come to an end, reports Damien Fisher of InDepthNH. On Wednesday, Derry District Court Judge Kerry Steckowych fined Paul $620,…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"give_campaign_id":0,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4392","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/townunderground.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4392","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/townunderground.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/townunderground.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/townunderground.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/townunderground.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4392"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/townunderground.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4392\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/townunderground.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4392"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/townunderground.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4392"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/townunderground.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4392"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}