• by Ray Schultz , August 29, 2022

Most Americans support the Journalism Competition & Preservation Act (JCPA). But there is a small but vocal minority that opposes the law that would allow local news publishers to collectively bargain with Big Tech platforms like Google and Facebook for fair use of their content.  

The way the bill is written now, it could result in the firing of journalists, these critics say. 

“The NewsGuild spent the last several months working to improve the bill, but it still lacks sufficient guardrails to make sure the added revenue is dedicated to employing journalists and to better serve readers, NewsGuild-CWA President Jon Schleuss said last week on the NewsGuild site. 

Schleuss added, “This bill has come a long way, but companies like Gannett show we need to make sure the money is spent on employing local journalists and providing the reporting our communities need.”

Mike Masnick, editor of the Techdirt blog, is more blunt about it. He states that only publishers with 1,500 or less employees will qualify.  

“We’re at a time when hedge funds — most notably Alden Capital — have been buying up newspapers and laying off tons of people while trying to squeeze cash out of the remaining husks,” Masnick writes. “And, this bill basically says ‘buy up large newspapers and cut them to under 1,500 employees.’ Indeed, remember, the head of Alden not that long ago was writing opeds saying that Google and Facebook should just pay him money. And here’s Amy Klobuchar saying “sure, you get free money just as long as you fire enough people first.“

Schleuss agrees that  “Too many hedge funds and private equity owners have hollowed out local newsrooms in favor of shareholders and Wall Street banks. 

He adds, “It’s essential that money the JCPA will provide goes to employing journalists. We look forward to seeing improvements
to the JCPA to make sure companies are staffing up newsrooms and not padding CEOs' pockets,” he said. 

Of course, the Facebooks and Googles can also be expected to object. 

It is not clear if the bill will become law. It is scheduled for markup on Sept. 8.  

Senator Amy Klobochar, a sponsor of the bill, urged passage when the markup and release of the text were announced last week. 

“To preserve strong, independent journalism, we have to make sure news organizations are able to negotiate on a level playing field with the online platforms that have come to dominate news distribution and digital advertising,” Klobochar said. 

Masnick, a small publisher, counters that, “as soon as you get into declaring which organizations are ‘journalism’ organizations, and which ones get this special benefit from the US government, you’ve entered dangerous 1st Amendment territory. We’ve had this issue in the past with other laws that try to carve out 'covered' journalism entities.”

But Masnick contends that “the much bigger problem is that the bill is trying to break the internet and establish the ability to tax links."

He continues, “The main function of the bill is to allow news orgs to team up, force internet companies that link to them into mandatory arbitration, and force them to pay the journalism organizations for linking to them. For linking to them. Literally for sending them traffic.” 

Clarity may be achieved next week during the markup.