Note: This was originally published as the daily newsletter for the Columbia Journalism Review, where I am the chief digital writer
Last week, members of both houses of Congress—including Amy Klobuchar, the Democratic senator from Minnesota; John Kennedy, the Republican senator from Louisiana, and David Cicilline, the Democratic member of the House of Representatives for Rhode Island—introduced a revised version of a bill they say will allow news outlets to bargain for “fair terms from gatekeeper platforms that regularly access news content without paying for its value.” The bill, called the Journalism Competition and Preservation Act, was originally introduced by Klobuchar last year; that in turn was based on a similar bill with an identical name, which Cicilline introduced in the House in 2018. The law would allow media outlets to negotiate as a group with platforms such as Google and Facebook for compensation, in return for allowing the platforms to aggregate and/or distribute their articles. Competitors coordinating their behavior would normally be collusion, but the JCPA gives media companies “safe harbor” from antitrust laws.
The act is similar to an Australian law known as the News Media and Digital Platforms Mandatory Bargaining Code, which that country passed last year amid a storm of controversy. Before the code became law, Facebook tried to dissuade Australia’s parliament from passing it by blocking the country’s news publishers from posting their content, and even blocked Facebook users in Australia from posting news provided by non-Australian outlets (Google showed users a warning popup saying their internet experience would be degraded by the law). Like the Australian law, the bill proposed by Klobuchar and Cicilline requires Google and Facebook to enter into negotiations—either with individual media outlets or with groups of outlets—over payment for their news content. If the two sides are unable to reach an agreement, both the Australian law and the US version require the digital platforms to submit to binding arbitration (there have been no cases of arbitration since the Australian law was passed in March of 2021).
Google and Facebook quickly signed deals with news publishers and broadcasters after the code became law, including one where Google pays Nine Entertainment—which owns a TV channel, radio stations, the Sydney Morning Herald, and The Age in Melbourne—$22 million a year for five years (Facebook agreed to pay the same company about $15 million). Critics argued the law would benefit only large entities such as those owned by News Corp. (which got an estimated $50 million), but supporters say that hasn’t been the case. Bill Grueskin, a professor in Columbia University’s School of Journalism, wrote in a recent report on Australia’s media industry that some local journalists believe the law has revived the news business. Monica Attard, a journalism professor, “says she can’t persuade many students to take internships these days because it’s so easy for them to land full-time job—and that change coincides with the gusher of code money,” Grueskin wrote. Attard added: “I swear to God, I have not seen it like this in twenty years.”
Continue reading “The Journalism Competition Act and the media industry”
