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Politics Aug 20, 2024
The Googleplex headquarters in Mountain View, California. | Photo courtesy of The Pancake of Heaven!/Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0)
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California lawmakers this week were expected to announce a deal with Google requiring the tech giant to pay into a multimillion-dollar fund supporting local journalism, according to published reports.
The deal will kill AB 886 and SB 1327, two bills that attempted to fund newsrooms via contributions from the tech industry, according to Sacramento television station KCRA citing two anonymous sources close to the negotiations.
Rather than legislation, state officials and industry leaders will work out a framework involving at least $242.5 million of both state and tech dollars to help fund newsrooms as well as journalism and artificial intelligence programs over the next five years, KCRA reported Monday.
The sources, who spoke on the condition they remain anonymous, told the TV station the deal calls for $172.5 million from Google and $70 million from the state. The journalism fund’s first year would put at least $45 million into newsrooms statewide, with the funds arriving as soon as next year.
The agreement also includes funding to speed up artificial intelligence, KCRA reported. Specifics on exactly how much money would be set aside for AI were not yet worked out.
Sources told the TV station that this aspect of the deal intended to bring companies like Meta, which is Google’s parent company, and Amazon to the negotiating table. Google has pledged $12.5 million over the next five years, while OpenAI has agreed to contribute technology.
The agreement also includes the approval of legislation that will prioritize local newsrooms when the state dedicates its advertising dollars for public service announcements and messaging.
Writing in Editor & Publisher, Steve Waldman and Anna Brugman of the advocacy group Rebuild Local News summed up the pending deal.
- “New money for a Local News Fund, allocated on a per headcount basis
- “Restatement of existing money that’s being spent
- “New money for a ‘National AI accelerator’ that may have benefits but helping local news in California is not likely to be the main goal
- “In-kind contributions from tech companies”
Based on the framework as Steve Waldman and Anna Brugmann said they last saw it, Google has committed to $15 million for the local journalism fund in the first year, then a continued approximately $10 million via the Google News Initiative. The state will contribute $30 million in the first year.
“Google’s total commitment to the Local News Fund at this point is $55 million over five years. California legislators are also committing to support the Local News Fund in the coming years, but the amounts are vague at this point,” according to Waldman and Brugmann in their article published Tuesday morning.
“California’s journalists did not ask for this,” Matt Pierce of Media Guild West said in an X post, adding that the deal signaled an “apparent collapse of the California legislature’s efforts to check Big Tech’s chokehold on local journalism.”
A guild bulletin to journalists Sunday night said of the deal: “Bottom line: This isn’t regulation. It’s a ratification of Google’s monopoly power over our newsrooms.”
A Google ad running prominently on broadcast television urges the public to contact legislators in opposition to AB 886.
“Our local news keeps us informed when others won’t. But it’s under siege from big, out-of-state media companies and hedge funds,” Google’s ad says. “Now California legislators are considering a bill that could make things even worse by subsidizing national and global media corporations while reducing web traffic local papers rely on. So tell lawmakers: Support local journalism, not well-connected media companies. Oppose AB 886. Paid for by CCIA.”
Waldman and Brugmann noted that deadlines for the Journalism Preservation Act have been “tossed about, but the real deadline is the end of California’s legislative session” Aug. 31.
Assemblywoman Buffy Wicks, D-Berkeley, and Sen. Steve Glazer, D-Concord, are the sponsors of AB 886 and SB 1327.
Updated Aug. 21, 2024, 8:34 a.m.
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