A California lawmaker who initially pushed legislation that would have forced Google to pay news publishers for distributing their content, has now announced a deal with tech companies to help fund newsrooms and launch a “National AI Accelerator.”
In this “first-in-the-nation partnership,” Assemblymember Buffy Wicks on Wednesday said the state and tech companies will pay nearly $250 million over the next five years, with the majority of funding going toward newsrooms.
Calling it a “cross-sector commitment,” Wicks said the initiatives will begin in 2025 with $100 million the first year.
“This agreement represents a major breakthrough in ensuring the survival of newsrooms and bolstering local journalism across California — leveraging substantial tech industry resources without imposing new taxes on Californians,” said Governor Gavin Newsom in a statement. “The deal not only provides funding to support hundreds of new journalists but helps rebuild a robust and dynamic California press corps for years to come, reinforcing the vital role of journalism in our democracy.”
Wicks, in her statement, did not disclose how much money the state would be allocating or the amount that would go toward AI.
News agencies have reported that this agreement effectively kills Wicks’ bill — the California Journalism Preservation Act — that directed big tech companies to pay publishers a fee each time they used local news content and sold advertising alongside it. The Media Guild of the West, which represents media workers in Southern California, endorsed this bill.
Among those supporting Wednesday’s agreement is Chris Krewson, executive director of Local Independent Online News Publishers, who in a CalMatters story pointed to Canada, where a similar measure caused Facebook to block news sharing on its platforms in response to the law – a move that has impacted small local news outlets, according to Voice of America News.
“I just don’t know that this industry should be in the position of saying no to any help it can get,” Krewson said in CalMatters. “And I don’t think it makes us more or less reliant (on tech platforms) than we already have been.”
Others in support are Arturo Carmona, president of the Latino Media Collaborative, who in a statement said, “protecting and rebuilding California’s robust media ecosystem and ensuring it serves immigrants, Latinos and communities of color equally requires an important role for philanthropy, our tech and private sector, and yes, California’s State Government”
Regina Wilson, executive director of California Black Media, said the agreement is “especially helpful for ethnic and community media which is comprised largely of under-resourced family businesses whose strongest connections are to their community.”
Julian Do, co-director for Ethnic Media Services, called the agreement “an ethnic-media model for the nation.”
Journalists, however, are not buying it.
“Not in our names,” the Media Guild of the West posted on X.
“The publishers who claim to represent our industry 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 to return the wealth this monopoly has stolen from our newsrooms,” read a statement released by the Media Guild of the West.
Wicks said the AI program will provide resources and support to a range of organizations across industries — from journalism to the environment — “to experiment with AI to assist them in their work.” The AI accelerator, Wicks said, would create “new tools to help journalists access and analyze public information.”
Days before Wednesday’s official announcement, Matt Pearce, president of the Media Guild of the West, emailed journalists alerting them to news of the potential deal.
“This isn’t regulation. It’s a ratification of Google’s monopoly power over our newsrooms,” he wrote.
“If accepted, the deal would mark a total rout of both the legislature’s and the news industry’s two-year effort to impose a check on the Big Tech companies that have put local news in a stranglehold.”
The Society of Professional Journalists issued a statement on Thursday, calling on California decisionmakers to ensure the agreement “serves as a genuine step forward in reversing our nation’s alarming decline in newsroom employment.”
“It is concerning that journalists appeared to lose their seat at the table as this initiative was negotiated,” said SPJ National President Ashanti Blaize-Hopkins in the statement. “At the very least journalists should be deeply involved in how this plan will be rolled out, as it could potentially impact their livelihoods.”
California Labor Federation President Lorena Gonzalez said on X: “If workers in an industry can’t support your efforts to “save it”, maybe it doesn’t hit the mark. We support local journalism AND the journalists who write it.”
