TLDR
- California and tech companies reach a deal to give away $250 million over five years to support local journalism and create a National AI Accelerator.
- Media unions decried the “backroom deal” that killed a more aggressive state bill that would have made tech companies pay more for profiting off news content without compensating newsrooms.
- Out of the $250 million, $180 million will go to local media, reported the Sacramento Bee. Google and other tech companies will pay $110 million, and $70 million will come from taxpayer money.
California and Big Tech reached an agreement to give away $250 million over five years to support local news organizations and establish a National AI Accelerator.
The initiative is a watered-down version of California Assemblymember Buffy Wicks’ bill, AB 886, or the California Journalism Preservation Act. Her bill argued that Big Tech platforms are profiting off the content of news organizations without providing them compensation.
Tech companies reportedly lobbied heavily against the bill and threatened to remove news content from their sites if the bill passes. A tech trade group even ran ads against AB 886.
The original bill, which is now dead, would have called for Big Tech to pay for news that appears on its platform on an ongoing basis, according to the Sacramento Bee. The bill also would have given news outlets a mechanism to take Big Tech platforms like Google and Meta to arbitration for compensation.
Wicks’ bill aimed to help local journalists – a response to the alarming decline in local journalism. A recent Northwestern University study found that the U.S. has lost two-thirds of its newspaper journalists since 2005, with California alone shuttering over 100 newspapers in the past decade.
Who gets the money
Wicks told the newspaper that the $250 million deal represented the best of what was achievable. Out of the total, $180 million is slated for newsrooms. Funds will be managed by a nonprofit under UC Berkeley’s School of Journalism, overseen by news associations and unions, according to the Bee. Google and other tech companies will fund $110 million, with $70 million coming from the state.
Twelve percent of the $180 million is earmarked for media serving underserved areas. What’s left of the $250 million will be reserved for an AI accelerator project. The first stages of both initiatives are set to launch in 2025.
However, the total amount given away could exceed $250 million, if the partnership gets more public and private funding in coming years, Wicks’ office announced.
But Matt Pearce, president of the Media Guild of the West, a journalists’ union, tweeted that a “fair payment” from Google would have been $1.4 billion per year. He shared statistics from researchers estimating that Google owes between $10 billion to $12 billion a year to U.S. publishers.
Journalists’ union shut out of talks
Media unions lambasted the deal between Big Tech and the state.
“We are left almost without words,” the Media Guild of the West said in a blog post. The parties in the deal are celebrating an “opaque deal involving taxpayer funds, a vague AI accelerator project that could very well destroy journalism jobs, and minimal financial commitments from Google.”
The Asian American Journalists LA also came out against a deal it said was “drafted behind closed doors,” according to a tweet. The Latino Journalists of California called the talks “secretive dealings that let Google off the hook and now requires California taxpayers to foot about a quarter of the bill.”
Gov. Gavin Newsom said the state funding was made available without new taxes on Califiornians.
