Senate Judiciary Committee Advances Bill to Support News Outlets in Negotiations with Tech Giants
In a significant move to bolster print and broadcast news outlets, the Senate Judiciary Committee has revived a long-proposed bill known as the Journalism Competition and Preservation Act. The legislation aims to provide news organizations increased market power during negotiations with tech giants like Google and Facebook. Print, broadcast, and digital newsrooms would be given a "safe harbor" from antitrust laws for six years in order to address the decline of local journalism—which has accelerated at an alarming rate in the United States. Although previous attempts to pass this bill have stalled, the bill finally passed the Senate Judiciary Committee with a 14-7 vote.
Senators Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) and John Kennedy (R-LA) lead the charge in championing the Journalism Competition and Preservation Act. “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,” said Klobuchar. ““Our bipartisan legislation ensures media outlets will be able to band together and negotiate for fair compensation from the Big Tech companies that profit from their news content, allowing journalists to continue their critical work of keeping communities informed. Now that this bill has advanced through the Judiciary Committee with a strong bipartisan vote, I look forward to working with my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to get it passed by the full Senate and signed into law.”
Previous attempts to pass the bill encountered roadblocks, notably in December, when Facebook threatened “to consider removing news from our platform altogether” rather than “submit to government mandated negotiations that unfairly disregard any value we provide to news outlets through increased traffic and subscriptions,” which translated into a refusal to negotiate with Congress. Facebook contended that it already drove traffic and subscriptions to news outlets, claiming that the proposed legislation disregarded its contributions–despite the truth that only three percent of content shared on Facebook is from reputable news outlets. Thanks to this conflict arising in December, this bill never reached the Senate floor, nor was it included in end-of-year defense legislation.
Similar legislation has been proposed on the state level in California, as well as internationally in Australia and Canada. Meta’s warning that they would block and remove all news content altogether never materialized as such in either place. “Despite all the fear mongering, the internet did not break in Australia,” said Klobuchar. She asserted that the bill was important to make sure “news organizations are able to negotiate on a level playing field.” Senator Kennedy clarified that the bill “is not about whether or not you like social media. This bill is not about whether or not you like what is happening in American news media today. This bill is about creative content, that is all it is about, and whether we respect creative content and value it, and whether we do not.”
Ironically, California Senator Alex Padilla voted against the bill, expressing concerns that it failed to address his previous apprehensions, regarding where the money promised in the bill would actually go. However, Senator Klobuchar expressed willingness to work with Senator Padilla to address his concerns, highlighting the backing of the Authors Guild, which only supports working writers, and other small-time content creators for the legislation.
Whether or not the House will pass the bill remains uncertain. Senator Mike Lee, an opponent of the legislation, noted that House Speaker Kevin McCarthy previously stated that the bill was "dead in the House," indicating that the bipartisan Senators have a lot more work to do in order to sway the Republican-controlled lower chamber to their cause.
Whether or not this legislation will be efficient in rebalancing power between big tech and individual journalists and newsrooms remains to be seen. Republicans in Congress have shown an unwillingness to take power away from big tech, refuting their own “free market” philosophy which prohibits monopolies of any kind. However, with some bipartisan support in the Senate, there is a chance yet for small newsrooms to get the attention they deserve.
