FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Arlington, VA – The News/Media Alliance applauds Illinois Senator Steve Stadelman (D-Rockford) for recently introducing the Journalism Preservation Act (SB 3591) in the Illinois Senate, which would require Big Tech platforms such as Meta and Google to pay news publishers a “journalism usage fee” to use local news content. Currently, creators of quality journalism are not adequately compensated for the use of their content – which takes a tremendous investment to produce – leading to layoffs of journalists and, in the worst cases, closure of news outlets completely.
Senator Stadelman was the Chair of the Illinois Local Journalism Task Force, which recently recommended legislation to counter the decline in sources of local journalism observed in the state.
The bill is similar to the California Journalism Preservation Act (CJPA, AB 886), which was introduced by California Assemblymember Buffy Wicks (D-Oakland) last year and passed out of the Assembly in June 2023 with an overwhelming, bipartisan vote of 55-6. The CJPA is expected to be brought up during the 2024 session for a vote in the California Senate.
“The future of local journalism is in danger – which is why I have sponsored the Journalism Preservation Act,” said Senator Stadelman. “Local journalism is an essential part of our lives, and Illinois residents deserve access to accurate and important information.”
“We applaud Senator Stadelman for introducing this legislation and for recognizing the critical need to protect high-quality journalism and ensure that important, accurate information continues to be available to Illinois communities,” said Danielle Coffey, President & CEO of the News/Media Alliance. “States across the country are increasingly recognizing the need for legislation that corrects the current marketplace imbalance by requiring the tech platforms to fairly compensate publishers for the use of their valuable content.”
As with the CJPA, the Illinois JPA would also promote the hiring of more journalists, requiring news publishers to invest 70 percent of the profits from the usage fee into journalism jobs.
The Alliance has been vocally advocating for such legislation at the federal level since 2018.
Currently, Google snips and displays information gathered and vetted by news publishers in their search results, leading two-thirds of readers to end their search there, without ever clicking through to publishers’ sites. This deprives publishers of the advertising revenue and user traffic associated with interested readers.
The Canadian government recently passed and is now implementing the Online News Act, which requires Big Tech platforms to compensate news publishers in the country for use of publisher content on their platforms. Prior to that, in 2021, Australia passed the News Media Bargaining Code, which similarly requires Big Tech to compensate news publishers, and which inspired the Canadian law.
In all of the above cases where compensation legislation has come up for a vote or been passed, Meta has threatened to remove news from Facebook in retaliation for the laws, demonstrating their outsized power.
Coffey added, “These laws are working in other countries to channel much-needed revenue back to providers of quality journalism. With that revenue, publishers are staying in business and hiring journalists again. Illinois should follow the lead of California and these other countries and pass legislation to give Illinois news publishers the ability to negotiate with the dominant tech platforms for the compensation they deserve.”
The federal bill, the Journalism Competition & Preservation Act (JCPA), was reintroduced in the 118th Congress (S. 1094) and successfully passed out of the Senate Judiciary Committee last summer. In a poll of 1,000 U.S. adults conducted by Schoen Cooperman Research for the News/Media Alliance, 70 percent of Americans said they support Congress passing the JCPA.
For more information on the federal JCPA, visit www.JCPABill.com.
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Media contact:
Lindsey Loving
Director, Communications
lindsey@newsmediaalliance.org
The News/Media Alliance is a nonprofit organization representing more than 2,200 news and magazine media organizations and their multiplatform businesses in the United States and globally. Alliance members include print and digital publishers of original journalism. Headquartered just outside Washington, D.C., the association focuses on ensuring the future of journalism through communication, research, advocacy, and innovation. Information about the News/Media Alliance can be found at www.newsmediaalliance.org.
Members of the News/Media Alliance staff have contributed to this post.
