San Francisco, Aug 23 : The local newspaper industry in the US is supporting the idea of the Journalism Competition and Preservation Act to make it mandatory for Big Tech to pay publishers for aggregating their news articles online.The legislation is designed to give news media with a level playing field, allowing them to negotiate together in exchange for an annual cost for their content with Google and Meta (formerly Facebook) that dominate the market for digital advertising as reported by the Chicago Tribune.
Newspaper advertising revenue has plummeted by more than 80 percent since it reached $49.4 billion in 2005, and then fell to $9.6 billion in 2020 according to Pew Research Center.
“Our bipartisan legislation guarantees that media outlets are capable of engaging in good bargaining to receive an equitable amount of compensation from Big Tech companies that profit from their news content and allowing journalists to carry on their vital job of keeping communities up-to-date,” Senator Amy Klobuchar is one of the bill’s co-sponsors, stated in an announcement.
Both Meta and Google have not responded to the legislation that was proposed.
The bipartisan bill would cover thousands of regional and local newspapers.
“The bill also contains local radio and TV broadcasters who publish exclusive digital news and also meet additional eligibility requirements,” said the report.
It does not include national publications, such as The New York Times, The Washington Post, and The Wall Street Journal.
Google and Meta/Facebook make up about half of the more than 250 billion dollars US digital advertising market according to Insider Intelligence.
The news media that are eligible for accreditation have to update their content at a minimum every week and employ less than 1,500 full-time employees and devote at least 25 percent of their content to issues of the public’s interest at present, according to the report states.
In the year 2019, Facebook agreed to pay licensing fees to The Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Washington Post and the Chicago Tribune, among others to publish their content.
However, after registering its first ever revenue decline in the second quarter of of this year, Meta said it would not pay news publishers to aggregate stories.
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