By Selen Ozturk<\/p>\n
As devastating layoffs and growing news deserts fuel uncertainty about the future of journalism, what can save local media?<\/p>\n
At a Friday, February 2 Ethnic Media Services briefing, local news policy advocates and ethnic media publishers shared their views on the role of local journalism against the growing news crisis, and discussed legislative policies to rescue local journalism.<\/p>\n
The crisis in local news is accelerating nationwide, said Steven Waldman, founder and president of Rebuild Local News and co-founder and former president of Report for America.<\/p>\n
An annual State of Local News\u00a0report\u00a0from Northwestern University\u2019s Medill School of Journalism found that the loss of local newspapers accelerated to two and a half per week in 2023, leaving over 200 counties as \u201cnews deserts\u201d and over half of U.S. counties with limited access to reliable local news, with another 228 counties at \u201chigh risk\u201d of losing local news.<\/p>\n
Although there is a consensus that \u201cgovernment support should not be the primary support for news\u201d as this can potentially \u201cundermine independence of the press, we\u2019re seeing that some policies are clearly needed,\u201d said Waldman.<\/p>\n
Advertising to local newspapers declined 82% \u2014 a $40 billion drop \u2014 since 2000, according to the\u00a0Pew Research Center<\/a>.<\/p>\n One such policy is government-backed advertising more heavily invested in local journalism.<\/p>\n In New York City, for example, the\u00a0City Council<\/a>\u00a0passed a CUNY proposal that half the advertising money the city spent would benefit community media, which led to a $9.9 million shift of funds for the sector \u2014 nearly 84% of the city\u2019s total print and ad budget.<\/p>\n Other such policies include tax credit proposals, said Waldman.<\/p>\n On the state level, this involves tax credit for small businesses that advertise in local news. Federally, the Community News and Small Business Support Act (HR-4756<\/a>), which is currently in Congress, is an employment tax credit of up to $25,000 per head for editorial staff.<\/p>\n One major proposal is a bargaining code requiring tech platforms like social media\/companies to compensate news organizations for use of content: in Canada this takes the form of the Online News Act (C-18<\/a>) passed in 2022, and in Australia, the\u00a0News Media Bargaining Code<\/a>\u00a0passed in 2021.<\/p>\n Ryan Adam, Vice President of Government and Public Relations for the Toronto Star \u2014 Canada\u2019s largest newspaper \u2014 said, \u201cYou see now with the LA Times and Washington Post layoffs, having a benevolent rich owner isn\u2019t enough. And that\u2019s because the business model for news is broken on the advertising side.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201c80% of our own revenue used to come from ads and 20% from subscriptions,\u201d he continued, \u201cbut in the last 15 years, with the ability of Google and Meta to use our content to drive advertising, a great deal of that 80% has gone.\u201d<\/p>\n Now, three years into the Australian bill, \u201ctech platforms are holding up their end of some lucrative content deals. Revenue bleeding has stopped, and people are starting to think of journalism as a growing industry,\u201d said Adam, who advocated for the passage of the Canadian bill modeled upon it\u2019s Australian predecessor.<\/p>\n Likewise for the Canadian model, he added, \u201cA lack of any government-independent news is not built to last, because governments can change. What is built to last is some of the biggest companies in the world recognizing the value of the content they\u2019re using, through compensating journalists with revenue from ads run by sharing that news. I think it\u2019s the best-case scenario.\u201d<\/p>\n These bills set an international precedent for two similar U.S. tech-content bargaining bills: the Journalism Competition and Preservation Act (S-1094<\/a>) currently in Congress on the federal level and the Journalism Protection Act (AB-886<\/a>) in California, which is set to be heard by the Senate Judiciary Committee around early June.<\/p>\n Brittney Barsotti, General Counsel of the California Newspaper Publishers Association tracking media bills including AB 886, said despite criticisms that tech compensation will simply benefit hedge funds or large national news organizations, \u201cWe have around 450 publications throughout California and over 90% are small businesses\u2026 the money they\u2019d get is based on how much content is displayed; it\u2019s not a link tax.\u201d<\/p>\n Regardless, she continued, due to the\u00a0Dormant Commerce Clause<\/a>\u00a0and the First Amendment, \u201cwe can\u2019t do content-based deals,\u201d e.g. for ethnic media specifically. However, tweaks to the bill like headcount-based money distribution and guaranteed minimums for small publishers could mitigate these concerns.<\/p>\nThe Australian-Canadian model<\/h2>\n
U.S. tech content bills<\/h2>\n