California bills could restore journalism after Big Tech’s ‘second gold rush’ pushed industry to the brink

A federal district court in Washington D.C. last week ruled that Google violated the law through its monopoly over general search services and advertising.

Two bills now making their way through the California Legislature seek to address the damage this monopoly has done to the journalism sector. Assembly Bill 886, the California Journalism Preservation Act, would create a remedy for Google’s search violations, and Senate Bill 1327 provides a remedy to its unfair advertising advantage.

In response to both bills, Google has been running an aggressive advertising campaign, warning the public it will remove news from its search engine in California if the journalism preservation bill is passed and finances get restored to the news sector.

Meta, operators of Facebook and Instagram, has already carried through on that threat in Canada. 

Sounding an alarm about Big Tech in California, state Sen. Steven Glazer, a Democrat from Orinda, authored SB 1327 to revive local journalism, calling it the most important legislation of his career. Glazer refers to the unfair profit advantage that Google, Amazon and Meta have attained as a “second gold rush” in California. 

These mega-platforms have unfairly leveraged consumer data to profit from and control advertising markets. The advantage these platforms have gained has come at the expense of newsrooms built on advertising dollars, contributing to wave after wave of journalists losing their jobs as newspapers have shrunk, consolidated or shuttered over the last decade.

SB 1327 would offer sustainability to journalism, along with support for California schools, by levying a data extraction mitigation fee of 7.25% on platforms with more than $2.5 billion in advertising revenue (Google made $26 billion on revenue-share advertising in 2021). It would distribute $500 million to companies that employ journalists in our state, on a per-capita basis, and $400 million to California schools.

This money for reporting, without fear or favor, would make a game-changing difference to independent newspapers such as the Ojai Valley News | Ventura County Sun, the largest locally owned community news outlet in Ventura County. Without profit for owners and on a shoestring, five reporters with a mountain of chutzpah cover the 350,000 people of the west county and very often the rest of Ventura County.

What was once a busy hive of news coverage and a wealth of information about California communities is rapidly turning into the dried crusts of government news releases, shared from ghost newspapers or from skeleton crews at a few small outlets that largely depend on the dedication of a mission-driven staff to survive.

Press freedom is enshrined in the First Amendment of the Constitution, recognized as a vital check on government power. It is a right worth fighting for.

Big Tech does not shed a tear for democracy or for the gutting of newsrooms. These companies have been getting away with unprecedented control and profit-taking, clearly aiming to control news reporting itself. 

In addition to turning off news searches, Google has threatened to eliminate its nonprofit news-giving (another hammer in its toolbox). The flag colors of Big Tech are flying and we see the teeth beneath.

The tech industry’s dirty tactics include lobbyists twisting arms in Sacramento, pumping out fake stories to scare local businesses into believing digital ad rates will suddenly be tied to Google’s profit margins, and battering the public with scary ads. Their latest authoritarian maneuver is to threaten that Google will end news search. 

We should heed the warnings of this out-of-control sector. 

It’s time our legislators step up to rein in Big Tech and support SB 1327 and AB 886. If not now, when?

CalMatters CEO Neil Chase formally opposed AB 886 as it was introduced last year. His views do not necessarily reflect those of the organization, newsroom or its staff.