We got a police scanner for our office (oh yeah, we have an office sort of now... more on that later ;), and I was looking up Indiana Code to see what the law said about us having it. The only way to carry it in a car is to get permission from the local police chief (what happens if we cover multiple counties??) or be a 'newspaper.' Here's Indiana's definition of a newspaper. It seems you have to have a printed publication.

Now, my question is this - are there any states out there that recognize online only publications? I've started sending out some feelers to see if we can get officially recognized by the state of Indiana as a news source (I don't think saying Google News recegnizes us will work ;)

The other thing that goes along with this is the printing of legal notices (a big, BIG business for newspaper monopolies...) This is probably part of the reason for Indiana's definition of a newspaper. The thing is, I don't see how it's right for the state to say you're only a legit news source if you can afford to print X copies per week, etc.

More on this later. So busy lately... but in a good way. ;)

kpaul out

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