The News/Media Alliance joined a group of national and state news organizations in a letter calling for California Governor Gavin Newsom to sign AB-2222, a “news-neutral” journalism employment tax credit.
The California legislature passed the first-of-its-kind bill to preserve local journalism earlier in August, and the Governor has until September 30, 2026 to act on the bill.
The Community Newsroom Employment and Workforce Sustainability Act, or “Community NEWS Act,” (AB-2222) is a “news-neutral” mechanism because it creates refundable employment tax credits for qualifying local news organizations – regardless of size, speech, and structure – that hire and retain journalists across the state.
As laid out in News/Media Alliance President and CEO Danielle Coffey’s recent op-ed in the San Francisco Chronicle, AB-2222 creates a journalist employment tax credit model with a straightforward approach: to preserve local journalism, the bill helps publishers afford to employ and retain local journalists.
National organizations and state organizations from outside California are joining in to express support for the legislation as a standard for other state legislatures to follow, strongly urging the California Governor’s signature on this measure.
