Congress can fight to save local news from Big Tech
Over the past few weeks, Orlando Sentinel readers have told us, in many ways, the importance they place on local news.
Every day — without fail — brings new subscribers to the paper. Last week’s request for contributions to our community newsroom fund drew a response that went beyond the financial, underscoring the critical role that news plays in our readers’ daily lives with messages like this one: “By shining light in dark places, you help keep integrity in our community.”
But here’s the brutal reality threatening journalism today.
Massive social media companies and search engines also see the value of our work, but only in dollars that end up lining their own pockets. When our readers get excited about our coverage and share it, social-media platforms wring every last dollar from your enthusiasm, including tactics meant to discourage people from clicking through to local news sites. To put it in perspective, of every dollar in advertising that’s generated by local news coverage, social media companies and search engines devour 70 cents.
Think about it. We provide comprehensive coverage on local elections and interview dozens of candidates. You take the time (and sometimes the heat) of sharing it with your friends. They make money off that.
We spend hundreds of hours digging deep into hidden corruption and double-dealing. You express your outrage or skepticism. They make money.
We work around the clock to keep you updated on dangerous storms. You spread it far and wide in an attempt to keep your friends and family members safe. They make money.
And when we ask them to chip in, to support the local journalism that provides such a flood of revenue into their own coffers, they ignore us. Even the biggest media companies can’t match their vast reach. Individual newspapers, TV stations and radio stations have no hope of being heard.
So we’re asking Congress for a little time — a space where the interests of these local outlets can join forces to negotiate with Big Tech. Doing so would require a one-time exception to national anti-trust laws, but we believe our request actually honors the spirit of those laws more than it hinders them. These laws, written in the era of the robber barons and ruthless union busting, were meant to protect powerless workers and consumers against the vast and mighty. But in today’s digital world, the vast and mighty are exploiting those protections as a shield.
And in a doubly ironic plot twist, those same massive platforms cater to (and profit from) the “dark places” where misinformation thrives, allowing lies to spread with lightning speed.
The bill that would put local news outlets closer to equal footing is the Journalism Competition and Preservation Act or JCPA. It has bipartisan support. Polling by Schoen Cooperman Research shows broad public support as well. Both conservatives and liberals are vocally uneasy about the increasingly toxic effect “Big Tech” is having on the national narrative. The legislation is narrow in scope, expires after six years and would most benefit local news organizations that put any revenue they receive from new agreements back into hiring journalists and beefing up news operations.
Meanwhile, Big Tech is only worried about the bottom line. In response to an agreement by Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and Minority Leader Mitch McConnell that would let the JCPA hitch a ride on must-pass military spending legislation, Meta — which owns Facebook and Instagram — threatened to halt the distribution of news content on Facebook. In response, the JCPA has been taken out of that bill, but Congress should find another way to pass it.
Big Tech made the same threat when Australia passed a similar law, and half-heartedly carried it out — for a little while. Things are mostly back to normal, with one exception: Reuters reports that Australian news outlets are keeping more of the money their work generates, and using that money to hire even more journalists.
Congress should give local news outlets the ability to do the same thing. Their constituents — our readers — will reap the benefits.