Newspapers are dying. That’s old news. What’s new is that Californians may be able to receive life support from the state government.
A state law is about to be enacted that would force the biggest internet platforms like Google to spend money to save journalism. After all, these platforms are the main villains in the downfall of many news organizations.
Newspapers are not the only ones on the brink of decline. That’s a lot of print, broadcast, and even digital news coverage.
In Washington, Sacramento, and every city and small town, the profession that gathers the factual information people need to hold their elected officials and governments accountable is in financial jeopardy.
Robust journalism is an essential component of a healthy democracy. Weak journalism leads to a sick democracy.
Below are clear examples of what is happening today as misinformation fills the communication vacuum created by the weakening of fact-based journalism.
In fact, millions of Americans believe Donald Trump’s lie that the 2020 election was stolen from him. There is no reliable evidence for that pathetic loser fabrication. But Trump supporters ignore less objective news outlets and reaffirm their beliefs in echo chambers like Fox News.
Most government and political writers are inherently driven by a desire to break through bullsh*t positions and provide the public with straight facts written in an easy-to-understand manner. If there is an agenda, it is not an ideological one. It is to be published on the top page or the top of the website.
However, news reporting has traditionally been primarily funded by advertising, and is therefore a declining profession. That is collapsing because of the internet.
Essentially, major internet platforms are gobbling up news organizations’ products, working without paying them, and building their own advertising programs around extorted articles. Or just steal the information and create your own posts. This is the scary future of AI.
Newspaper advertising has dried up. And because of platform behavior, revenue is no longer being replaced by internet advertising.
Also, when you use Google to buy shoes online, your data is collected by the platform and sold to other shoe companies. Soon, you’ll be flooded with shoe ads online. And shoe attire has no reason to advertise in the newspaper or on local TV.
Advertising money used to pay journalists’ salaries has been leaking for years. Roughly two-thirds of California journalists have lost their jobs in the past 20 years. More than 100 Times news staffers were laid off in January.
To their credit, some members of Congress are standing up to powerful platforms and trying to throw a lifeline to news organizations.
Rep. Buffy Wicks (D-Oakland) is pushing AB 886, a bill similar to laws enacted in Australia and Canada. That would require major platforms to pay news organizations for their products. Fees will be set by arbitration. News organizations will be required to spend at least 70% of their funds on reporters.
The bill passed Congress last year but has not yet been passed by the Senate.
Key lawmakers have agreed to pass something this summer, but have not yet decided what. They are trying to put together a bill that can achieve a difficult two-thirds legislative vote, be accepted by major platforms and get Gov. Gavin Newsom’s signature. The governor has always been a mother.
The foursome includes Wicks, Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Tom Amberg (D-Orange), new Senate Majority Leader Mike McGuire (D-Healdsburg), and Steve, the author of the second journalism relief bill.・Senator Glaser (Democratic Party, Orinda).
“We’ve seen a hollowing out of newsrooms on an epic scale that has seriously undermined government oversight,” said Glaser, a former political correspondent.
I asked Paul, a veteran, if he had noticed a decline in coverage of the Capitol. “Of course,” he answered. “We have great reporters. But the amount of unchecked activity going on at the Capitol is extraordinary.”
Over the past two decades, the size of the Capitol reporter corps has shrunk by two-thirds, even at the Times bureau.
Glazer’s bill, SB 1327, would impose a “data extraction mitigation fee” (sales tax) on platforms that earn more than $2.5 billion annually advertising to Californians. It would capture Google, Amazon, and Meta and generate $1 billion a year.
40% would go to school, a move that could help garner political support for the bill.
Half of that, $500 million, will be a tax credit on reporters’ salaries. Deductions range from 30% of salary for full-time news employees at the Times and other large newspapers to up to 55% for new hires at small newspapers with up to five employees.
I called the publisher of the Ojai Valley News, a small weekly magazine with two full-time reporters and four half-time staffers.
“We really need something to save independent newspapers,” says publisher Laura Liarwyn Ward. “If we do it right, reporters could be paid better. I don’t see why reporters have to live in poverty. This company can’t afford to pay them a fair wage. They can’t afford to pay them a fair wage. I’m doing it for love.”
I also called Chris Argentieri, the newspaper’s counterpart director. The company is president and chief operating officer of the LA Times, which has a news staff of approximately 400 people.
“We create a lot of very important intellectual property that is distributed around the world,” Argentieri told me. “It doesn’t make sense for a company to take our product and not compensate us for it.”
He added that news organizations are not big enough to deal with powerful platforms and the platforms will not negotiate. “The only thing that can compete with Google is the government,” he says.
I asked him about the future of newspapers. His formula is good products that people buy, digital subscriptions, philanthropy, and public sector support.
The two bills pending in Congress will probably, hopefully, be combined in some way.
If the government doesn’t stand up to the modern-day robber lords, much of the legitimate news coverage could become “-30-.” It’s an old news copy sign that stands for “The End.”
