Democratic AGs urge Congress to pass law to help local journalism

Democratic attorneys general from several states have co-signed a letter that urges the Senate to pass legislation that would help local news organizations get on better financial footing.

The Journalism Competition and Preservation Act would allow publishers and broadcasters to form a collective and negotiate pricing for online platforms — such as Facebook and Twitter — to share their content. 

The original legislation, introduced by Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn. and Sen. John Kennedy, R-La., was ultimately stripped from a defense spending package late last year after major players in Big Tech opposed it — Facebook even threatened to pull news from its platform rather than comply. Klobuchar, who chairs the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Competition Policy, Antitrust and Consumer Rights, and Kennedy reintroduced the bill in March. 

For years, publishers and journalism advocates have said that the current model is exploitative, particularly for local news outlets. (Monday’s announcement of layoffs at The Athletic, a sports journalism website, is feeding concerns about the decline of local news.)

In their June 6 letter endorsing the Senate bill, the state AGs — from Arizona, Connecticut, Delaware, Illinois, Minnesota, Nevada, New York, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont and Washington state — wrote: 

Local news outlets are critical resources for our states and communities, and are vital for a healthy democracy. This includes regional journalism, as well as journalism by and for Black, Indigenous, and people of color, including ethnic media organizations. These organizations are critical to our communities as they have the greatest capacity to identify, investigate, and report on issues that directly affect them.

They go on to say they’re “deeply concerned that local news organizations across the country continue to struggle because of significantly reduced revenues, media consolidation, and a growing reliance on online news to serve these roles.” 

In recent months, Republican officials have shown a willingness to try to curtail local news outlets that report on them or run afoul of their political agenda. In one such instance, Oklahoma’s Republican governor, Kevin Stitt, vetoed funding for his state’s PBS network, falsely claiming that some of the programming “just overly sexualizes our kids.” (The move was actually part of the conservative movement’s anti-LGBTQ crusade.)

Oklahoma lawmakers overrode the veto after many of them, Republicans included, highlighted how vital PBS is as a provider of local news — including warnings for tornadoes and other emergencies. 

Meanwhile, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis recently gave a prime example of what it looks like to declare war on local news. 

As Tori Otten noted for The New Republic, the Republican governor and 2024 presidential candidate pushed for a bill that would have made it easier for individuals to sue journalists for defamation and a bill to allow Florida officials to shield their travel records. (The defamation legislation failed.)

Writing for Semafor in December, Max Tani explained how DeSantis effectively has been creating his own media ecosystem in Florida by stonewalling traditional media in favor of handpicked right-wing outlets. 

All of this reinforces what the Democratic AGs stressed in their letter: Local news providers serve a vital purpose, and they must be empowered if we truly want powerful people to be held to account.