As private equity decimates newsrooms, layoffs abound and misinformation flourishes on social media, an Illinois bill offers a targeted solution to a decades-old journalism business model. It is intended to.
Introduced by Sen. Steve Stadelman (D-Rockford) SB3591, or the Journalism Preservation Act, in February. This would require Big Tech companies to track and compensate news organizations for the content they share, display or link to on social media platforms.
“Local newsrooms should be compensated for their content,” Stadelman told the Daily. “If big tech companies are making money off their platforms, there has to be some form of reimbursement, a revenue stream for their content.”
Since 2005, Illinois has lost more than 86% of its journalists and more than a third of its newspapers, according to the Local Journalism Task Force.
Medill Senior Associate Dean Tim Franklin, director of the Medill Local News Initiative and a member of the task force, said the underlying issue is a fundamental change in business models. Advertising revenue that was previously directed to newsrooms is now being collected by Big Tech companies such as Meta and Google, he said.
News publications currently rely on Meta and Google for 70% of their traffic, according to task force member and News/Media Alliance Chairman Daniel Coffey.
Mr. Stadelman's bill would create a structure and arbitration process for local newsrooms and publishers to negotiate content revenue-sharing agreements with Big Tech companies.
Coffey, who recently testified before the Senate Executive Committee, said one of the adjustments being discussed in the bill is direct funding to journalists. Mr Stadelmann said the details of the bill regarding the distribution model were “very fluid” and that further changes would be introduced in the near future.
Since its introduction in February, the bill received its first reading on the Senate floor and was assigned to the Executive Committee. A committee vote on the bill will take place on April 19th.
The bill is modeled on laws passed in Australia and Canada, and Stadelman's team is also monitoring the progress of similar legislation in the California state legislature.
“I respect that they are taking the time to do this because I think deliberation is important,” Coffey said. “At the same time, two newsrooms (nationwide) are closing every week and thousands of journalists are being laid off.”
Coffey said governments are the only recourse to deal with big tech companies, but the sheer size of these tech giants makes it particularly difficult to encourage major change.
According to Dr. Courtney Radosh, director of the Center for Journalism and Freedom at the Open Market Institute, Meta and Google employ several tactics to oppose regulatory actions in other countries and run campaigns on their platforms. The government has reportedly commissioned misleading public opinion polls.
Radosh told the Canadian Parliament that the whistleblower alleged technical issues that later turned out to be “bargaining tactics,” and that Google and Meta Inc. were forced to block news on their platforms during legislative processes in Australia and Canada. He testified that he blocked access to
In March, Meta spokesperson Jamie Radice told The Verge that news isn't the biggest reason people go to Facebook or Instagram.
If the Journalism Protection Act were passed, Meta would “make news unavailable in Illinois,” Ladis said.
Radice could not be reached for comment.
“In this space, we're fighting an adversary with very deep resources, so… there's a lot of crazy rhetoric and scare tactics that are distracting,” Coffey said.
Google initially threatened to do the same in Canada, but the company ultimately reached an agreement with the government for a one-time payment of C$100 million a year to keep links to news articles in search results. The amount reached approximately CAD 21,000 per journalist. .
“If you're a congressman, you'd rather support your local newspaper than support Big Tech,” Stadelman said. “This bill is going to help local communities, it’s going to help local publishers, so it’s probably going to counter that kind of strong lobbying.”
Stadelman, a former reporter turned lawmaker, introduced and successfully passed a bill in 2021 to create the Illinois Local Journalism Task Force. He chaired the task force, which was made up of journalism leaders from around the country, including Mr. Franklin and Mr. Coffey.
Franklin said Stadelman and his team drafted two bills based on the policy recommendations in the task force's final report: the Protection of Journalism Act and the Strengthening Community Media Act.
The latter was assigned to the executive committee in February. This includes a wide range of incentives aimed at repurposing local newsrooms, including a grant program aimed at helping to hire and retain journalists, especially in underserved rural areas; Includes tax breaks and scholarships.
“Bills that have a direct funding requirement from the state are always much harder to pass,” said state Sen. Rachel Ventura (D-Joliet), a co-sponsor of both bills.
Despite these challenges, the bill's sponsors said they were cautiously optimistic about the future of ensuring policy protections for news organizations.
“I understand what I'm up against here,” Stadelman said.
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