Big tech is threatening local journalism. Of this there can be little doubt.
COVID-19 caused drastic cuts in the nation’s newspaper revenue as businesses retrenched, forcing pay cuts and the furloughing and firing of journalists.
But the pandemic merely accelerated a crisis in local journalism that is now at least two decades old.
Since 2004, more than 1,800 local newspapers have closed across the United States, leaving whole counties without any local sources of news and greatly diminished coverage in many other areas as news staffs are slashed.
Research has found that this reduction in local news coverage can be linked to more corruption, less competitive elections, weaker municipal finances and greater partisanship among elected officials.
Much of this decline in print can be traced to the rise of social media companies and the move to digital advertising.
Just two companies – Google and Facebook – receive 60 percent of all current digital ad dollars and 90 percent of all new digital ad dollars.
This is, in part, made possible by social media companies with no reporters gaining traffic by linking to stories published by local new organizations that have reporters and editors.
In New York state, news publishers employ 95,480 reporters and newsroom staff members.
The social media companies don’t charge their readers to see this information, at least in terms of money. Instead, consumers pay by knowingly or unknowingly providing their personal information to the social media companies, which they then sell to advertisers.
The social media companies also attract people by posting what people say – whether it is true or not – and encouraging the most extreme voices who are often rewarded with the most followers.
This has made Facebook a breeding ground of misinformation and a haven for extremist groups and opponents of things like COVID vaccines and masks who have cost tens if not hundreds of thousands of lives as well as believers in the Big Lie that the last presidential election was rigged that now poses a real threat to our democratic form of government.
Fortunately, elected officials and newspaper executives are beginning to wake up to the threat posed to local journalism and free markets.
Publishers of 125 newspapers in 11 states recently filed or announced lawsuits against Google and Facebook claiming the tech giants have unlawfully monopolized the digital advertising market and engaged in an illegal secretive deal, nicknamed “Jedi Blue,” to thwart competition
In Congress, the Journalism Competition and Preservation Act, a bipartisan bill, has been presented. It would provide a limited antitrust safe harbor for news publishers to collectively negotiate with Facebook and Google for fair compensation for the use of their content.
This is not a small matter. Allowing an industry to band together to collectively bargain seems to violate the functioning of a free market as protected by antitrust laws.
The answer to that is what antitrust laws? No one has yet to stop Facebook and Google from eliminating their competition. And those are some of the companies the news publishers would be negotiating with.
“Whether it’s an online publisher or local newspapers, we cannot have democracy without a free and diverse press,” said House Judiciary Chairman David Cicilline (D-R.I.) in 2019. “Our country will not survive if we do not have shared facts, if corruption is not exposed and rooted out at all levels of government and if power is not held to account.”
Supporters of this legislation say the money provided by the social media companies for the content they use would allow local newspapers to hire more reporters.
For those who question the bipartisan bona fides of the legislation, consider that among those who have endorsed it is Rupert Murdoch’s New York Post. We gladly join the New York Post in endorsing the legislation.
In June, the House introduced a package of five bills that would make it harder for Facebook, Google, Apple and Amazon to complete mergers and prohibit them from owning businesses that present clear conflicts of interest. The legislation represents the most comprehensive effort to reform century-old antitrust laws in decades.
Congressman Tom Suozzi (D-Glen Cove) announced last week that another piece of legislation, the Local Journalism Sustainability Act, has been included in the House Ways and Means Committee’s budget reconciliation markup.
The bipartisan legislation would help bolster local media outlets with temporary tax credits for publishers employing and hiring local journalists.
“We must do everything we can to save local papers like The Island Now and the dozens of other community newspapers across our region that have faced economic struggles due to the pandemic,” said Suozzi, referring to Blank Slate Media’s website. “Local journalism is essential to a thriving democracy and I am fighting to ensure this legislation is passed as part of the budget reconciliation.”
Under the tax bill that was released by the House Ways and Means Committee, local publishers would get annual tax credits of up to $25,000 for each journalist they employ, which could then be put toward their employers’ share of Medicare payroll taxes. The value of the credit would fall to $15,000 after the law has been in effect for a year.
On the local level, New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio issued an executive order in 2019 mandating that all city agencies spend at least 50 percent of their print and digital advertising budgets in community and ethnic media.
We would hope the next mayor of New York City maintains the order and that it is adopted by Nassau County if not the state of New York.
If all this sounds one-sided in favor of local journalism, consider this: Congress passed a law in 1996 laying out the rules of the road for the then-infant online business.
One part of the law – Section 230 – was intended to allow online start-ups to avoid legal challenges to their content by terming them platforms and distributors rather than publishers who are held accountable by things like libel laws.
That law was never changed even after social media companies grew into financial behemoths that attracted much of the revenue that had gone to news companies.
Nor has Congress subjected social media companies to any meaningful oversight of their content.
It is past time for government at all levels to rein in social media companies – and help repair the damage that has been done to local journalism and a free press. For everyone’s sake.
The public can help by demanding that elected officials hold the social media companies accountable. This should include breaking up monopolies like Facebook and Google.
They should also lean on officials to at least temporarily aid local news organizations financially so they can increase the number of reporters covering village government, school boards and state legislatures.
The public can also support local news organizations with something as basic as a newspaper subscription. It is a small investment that can provide a very large return.
