Monterey Herald

Correct the power of Big Tech over news

This week, Congress has the opportunit­y to correct the asymmetric­al power of Big Tech over local news publishers by taking up the bipartisan Journalism Competitio­n and Preservati­on Act.

-

Since the earliest days of our republic, local newspapers have been critical to keeping the public informed about what's going on in their communitie­s and holding the powerful accountabl­e.

That hasn't changed in the digital age, with local news publishers adapting with the times by creating apps, newsletter­s, podcasts and websites to distribute the work of their newsrooms.

But what has changed over the past two decades is the growing power and influence of a handful of technology companies over who gets paid for the hard work of local journalist­s distribute­d on their platforms.

According to the California News Publishers Associatio­n, “for every dollar made in digital advertisin­g, the platforms take as much as 70% of the revenue, leaving publishers with a scant 30%.”

We think it's time for local news publishers to be able to negotiate, collective­ly, over that distributi­on of digital advertisin­g revenue. Polling by Schoen Cooperman Research has confirmed that majorities of Americans across the political spectrum agree with this common sense idea.

That's what the JCPA would make possible by providing an antitrust exemption for news publishers and broadcaste­rs for the purposes of jointly negotiatin­g fairer terms with Big Tech companies like Google and Meta.

On Monday, Meta, the company behind Facebook, engaged in cynical fear mongering against the law by announcing that passage of the JCPA could prompt the company to halt the distributi­on of news content on Facebook.

Don't fall for it.

The company said the same thing about a similar law passed in Australia last year which requires social media giants to compensate news publishers for news content distribute­d on their platforms. They even briefly blocked the sharing of news content before reversing themselves.

The Australian government has since declared the law a “success,” according to Reuters, which, “enabled news businesses to, in particular, employ additional journalist­s and make other valuable investment­s to assist their operations.”

Local news publishers in the United States deserve the same opportunit­y to negotiate for fair compensati­on from Big Tech companies profiting from their work.

The Journalism Competitio­n and Preservati­on Act should be approved and signed into law.

We think it's time for local news publishers to be able to negotiate, collective­ly, over that distributi­on of digital advertisin­g revenue. Polling by Schoen Cooperman Research has confirmed that majorities of Americans across the political spectrum agree with this common sense idea.

Newspapers in English

Newspapers from United States