Gov. Roy Cooper vetoed the bill that would–as the N&R puts it—“make Guilford County the guinea pig in a test case for letting local governments post such ads on their own websites instead of printing them in privately-owned publications that circulate in their jurisdictions.”

The legislature’s strongest advocate for the bill—Sen. Trudy Wade–issued a statement, saying the veto “”makes it clear his number one priority is brown-nosing those who cover him — to the detriment of the newspaper employees being denied worker’s compensation coverage, the taxpayers currently being forced to subsidize newspapers…”