“Google and Meta have repeatedly attempted to avoid paying news publishers for the high-quality, local journalism that publishers invest significant resources into producing, while the platforms enjoy a steady stream of users and ad revenue and news publishers struggle,” stated Danielle Coffey, Executive Vice President and General Counsel of the News/Media Alliance. “First in Australia, then in the U.S., and now in Canada, Meta and Google have threatened to remove news from their platforms and risk harming the public rather than pay for content they did not create. We cannot continue to allow Big Tech to exert their dominance any longer. The stakes – the survival of local journalism – are too great.”

When Australia was considering its News Media Bargaining Code, Meta ‘deliberately caused havoc’ amid the COVID-19 pandemic to influence the law. Their threats didn’t work, and the News Media Bargaining Code has helped news publishers there reach deals with the platforms. Meta made similar threats when the Canadian legislature introduced the Online News Act (C-18) last year and fought similar bipartisan efforts in Congress to pass the Journalism Competition and Preservation Act (JCPA) in December. In addition, Google has been testing removing news from its platform in Canada in the event C-18 becomes law.

The Alliance deeply appreciates the President’s efforts to promote competition across the American economy and calls on every corner of the Administration to stand strong against Big Tech’s efforts to resist fair payment that will help keep newsrooms open across the United States and the world.

The Alliance encourages Congress to pass the JCPA in the United States, which would establish fair terms of engagement between news publishers and platforms such as Facebook and Google. America’s publishers continue to support the global efforts in Canada, the UK, India, and Taiwan to promote fairness between the companies who employ hardworking journalists and the dominant online platforms that seek to exploit news content and divert advertising dollars to their own bottom line.

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The post Statement: News Publishers Call on President Biden to Defend Local Journalism in Canada Visit appeared first on News/Media Alliance.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Arlington, VA – Seven leading journalism, media, and pro-consumer antitrust advocacy organizations today sent a joint letter to President Joseph Biden calling on him to highlight, in his upcoming State of the Union address on February 7, the importance of local journalism. The letter highlights the urgent need for congressional action to preserve a strong democracy and a free press. Specifically, the letter urges President Biden to call on Congress to advance the bipartisan Journalism Competition and Preservation Act (JCPA) (S. 673 and H.R. 1735). The legislation will give small, local news outlets the ability to join together in negotiations that will level the playing field with Big Tech platforms. Small and local publishers currently do not have the ability to negotiate jointly for fair payment to counter the dominant power of Big Tech platforms. That imbalance allows tech monopolies to capture the vast majority of U.S. digital ad revenue, leaving local publishers with little to reinvest in the production of high-quality journalism.

The organizations that signed on to the letter include the News/Media Alliance, National Newspaper Association, America’s Newspapers, Authors Guild, American Economic Liberties Project, Inter American Press Association, and the Radio Television Digital News Association.

The letter outlines the plight of local news, in which news publishers have been forced to play by Big Tech’s rules of the digital advertising playing field for years, resulting in the loss of more than a quarter of U.S. newspapers since 2005 and the spread of news deserts across the country. In their letter, the groups underscore the importance of passing the JCPA as the best solution to ensuring news publishers are compensated fairly for use of their content by the dominant tech platforms, asking President Biden to call on Congress to pass the bill, which was introduced in the 117th Congress in 2021 and successfully marked up by the Senate Judiciary Committee last September. In addition, the groups ask Biden to call on Congress to pass the Local Journalism Sustainability Act, which would incentivize investments in local journalism through the tax code.

The letter states in part:

“While America has long been a beacon of light when it comes to freedom of the press, that light has grown dimmer due to the monopolistic shadow of the Big Tech giants. The largest tech platforms dominate revenue streams online, with Google and Facebook in control of an estimated 60 to 70 percent of digital ad markets. These anticompetitive behaviors are further highlighted in the Justice Department’s recently filed lawsuit against Google, which alleges monopoly abuse by the company in the online advertising market.

To stop that light from going out and allow America’s free press to continue to contribute to our nation’s resilience and serve as a model of democracy to the world, we need bipartisan action from Congress. The local news outlets we represent and others that prioritize a free press ask that you use your State of the Union address to call on the House and Senate to urgently advance key legislation to your desk that will help save local journalism.”

The JCPA has broad support, not only in Congress in both the House and the Senate (on both sides of the aisle – including 90 total co-sponsors), but also from over 300 consumer interest groups, unions, conservatives, advocacy groups and third-party organizations that have shown support for the JCPA by sending letters of support to the bill sponsors. In addition, over 24,000 individuals have signed a Change.org petition for the bill and nearly 1,000 editorials and op-eds in support of the JCPA have been published in newspapers in 48 states across the country. In a recent 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.

View the joint letter here.

For more information about the 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 2,000 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.

The post Journalism, Media & Economic Competition Advocates Call on President Biden to Show Support for Legislation That Would Help Save Local Journalism in State of the Union Address appeared first on News/Media Alliance.

Photo via Getty Images/E+ collection by da-kuk

They say time flies when you’re having fun, so it’s no wonder Election Week 2020 felt like it lasted a full year.

When the first polls closed at 7:00 p.m. on Tuesday, November 3, Americans nationwide had already been anxiously glued to their phones, computers and televisions, but we’d have to wait nearly a week for the 2020 Presidential Election to be called. No matter who you voted for, this one was a nail-biter. And though we have always been criticized for not paying attention to the news, us kids were no less anxious than our parents.

The oldest members of my generation, Gen Z, are about 25 years old; only seven years’ worth of us could vote in this election. But that doesn’t mean the rest of us didn’t care. 

My father and I attending Barack Obama’s 2009 inauguration. I was 5 years old.

I come from a very politically-engaged family. I can remember watching the results of the 2008 election on the TV in my apartment in downtown D.C. and hearing my father whoop and holler when Barack Obama was declared the winner. I was taken to his inauguration, wrapped in as many layers as my father thought was necessary for a five-year-old at the end of January. Ever since I can remember, election nights — primaries and midterms included — have been special nights at my house. I haven’t missed a single one since the day I was born. 

As something of a “fun” experiment, I kept a log of how I followed this year’s election results. I recorded nearly every action I took in the Notes app on my phone. The log, in full, is as follows:

What I learned, though I knew it in the back of my mind, was that I spent nearly every waking moment since the morning of November 3 staring at forecasts, results and any type of media that was following or commentating on the election. When I wasn’t doing that, I was chatting with my friends over the phone, FaceTime or text about the results. Even my schoolwork, which admittedly was reduced that week for a number of reasons, took a backseat because of how anxious I was to know the outcome. 

But political awareness isn’t limited to teenagers in the nation’s capital. Through social media, I saw teens across the nation, and even across the globe, become invested in this year’s election. I took part in many text exchanges with kids from many different states and countries. I scrolled through hundreds of social media posts that were made to inform voters of each candidate’s policies, entice people to vote or recap any updates on the race. Teens like myself who were too young to vote in this race produced a good amount of these messages . Why were we so invested? Because the results of this election affect us just as much as they affect any adult.

In the weeks following the election, I have let myself detach a bit from the news, though I haven’t stopped paying attention completely. I continue to read the alerts on my phone and keep an eye on Twitter to monitor the Trump Administration’s response to the election results which, no matter what side of the aisle you sit on, was objectively hectic. For the first day or two, however, I celebrated Biden’s victory. My father and I woke up at 5:30 a.m. the next morning, bought a newspaper with the results on the front page, and headed to the National Mall to see the sun rise over the Reflecting Pool while sitting on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial. 

A copy of The Washington Post bought on November 8, 2020, in front of Washington, D.C.’s Reflecting Pool.

Of course, after the first week of jubilation, it was back to work. I focused my attention on the fallout over the results, from the Trump Administration’s delayed start of the transition to the certifications in key states of the official vote counts. I also gave my attention to the upcoming Senate races in Georgia, which I wrote an article about for my school’s newspaper. And finally, on Monday night, I glued myself to my television for one last presidential race result as Joe Biden was declared the winner by the Electoral College. 

My generation paid attention to this election because we care about our future. If we couldn’t vote, we could help others vote. We signed up to work phone banks and at polling places. We helped others decide which candidate would best serve the United States and its citizens by using the internet, a place that has only become even more familiar to us over the past year, to educate ourselves and pass what we had learned onto others. We provided friends and family with reliable campaign resources to make judgments of their own. We posted graphics of each candidate’s policies on our Instagram pages and made informational videos for our TikTok accounts. We made our futures brighter by influencing the results of this election in any way possible. 

I am immensely proud of the work that teenagers did during this election. We didn’t let our age stop us from making a difference. When I vote for the first time in the 2022 midterms, I will know that my generation is making a difference, no matter how old we are.

The post Election 2020: How One Gen Z’er Has Followed the News appeared first on News/Media Alliance.

The press release below is provided by News Media for Open Government.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

WASHINGTON, D.C. – The News Media for Open Government (NMOG) today sent a position paper to President-Elect Joseph Biden and Vice President-Elect Kamala Harris’s transition team, outlining policy objectives that support and strengthen openness in government and the right to a free and independent press, which is critical to our nation’s democracy.

The position paper states, “Citizens across the country rely on journalists, both in Washington and in their local communities, to stay informed of what’s happening in their government. Fact-based, trusted information distributed to the public permits the unfettered discourse that sets the United States apart from much of the world.”

Recommendations in the position paper include:

• Daily White House press briefings and regular briefings across Executive Branch agencies.
• Eliminating current restrictions that prohibit government employees in Executive Branch agencies from communicating with the press unless a public information officer provides clearance and is involved.
• An administrative directive encouraging Executive Branch agencies to interpret the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) in a manner that favors the disclosure of government information to the American people.
• Administration support for Office of Government Information Services’ Advisory Opinions, that would increase government transparency and reduce unnecessary FOIA litigation costs for the government, businesses and individual citizens.
• Administration support for the principle that journalists will not be prosecuted for doing their jobs or protecting their confidential sources –  and journalists should be the last resort, not the first, when federal law enforcement is seeking information in an investigation.
• The withdrawal of a proposed Department of Homeland Security rule that limits the length of time foreign journalists can stay in the United States and places the government in a position of reviewing the content of journalist’s work product as part of the visa renewal process.

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Media contact:
Paul Boyle
paul@newsmediaalliance.org
571.213.4365

News Media for Open Government (NMOG) is a broad coalition of news media and journalism organizations working to ensure that laws, policies and practices preserve and protect freedom of the press, open government and the free flow of information in our democratic society. Members of the coalition include: Associated Press, Association of Alternative Newsmedia, MPA – The Association of Magazine Media, National Association of Broadcasters, National Newspaper Association, News Leaders Association, News Media Alliance, Online News Association, Radio Television Digital News Association, Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, and the Society of Professional Journalists.

The post News Media for Open Government Outlines Recommendations for Biden-Harris Transition Team appeared first on News/Media Alliance.

Arlington, VA – The News Media Alliance today sent recommendations to President-Elect Joseph Biden and Vice President-Elect Kamala Harris’s transition team outlining policy positions on regulations and existing laws that deter investment and limit growth in the news media industry.

The Alliance continues to lead the news sector’s efforts to protect the constitutional right to a free press. That objective also requires government policies that support a vibrant and growing news industry.

“Quality journalism is the foundation of a fully functional democracy, and our members have proven again and again how essential they are to the communities they serve,” said David Chavern, president and CEO of the News Media Alliance. “Unfortunately, the current environment has made continuing to deliver vital information to the public significantly more challenging than it has been in years past. From a complicated and unfriendly digital ecosystem that favors big tech over local news to limited government engagement with the press, publishers have had to fight to constantly evolving challenges. We encourage the new Administration to revisit these policies and practices as it charts a new course for our nation’s future.”

The Alliance’s recommendations outline key public policy positions that involve such issues as: the passage and enactment of a limited antitrust safe harbor allowing news publishers to collectively negotiate with the tech platforms; a comprehensive revision of Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act of 1996 that holds the platforms accountable and is not exported in international trade agreements; taking an active role in passing a COVID relief package that includes PPP affiliation exemption and tax benefits for local news; reigning in the overly expansive “fair use” defense to copyright protections that have been continually eroded by the courts in recent years; developing privacy policies that respect a consumer’s right and are proportionally targeted at platforms who financially benefit from flagrant use of consumer data across the web; and protecting press access and freedom to assure the government is open and accountable to the public.

You can read the full list of policy recommendations here.

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Media contact:
Lindsey Loving
Director, Communications
lindsey@newsmediaalliance.org
571.366.1009

The News Media Alliance is a nonprofit organization representing more than 2,000 news organizations and their multiplatform businesses in the United States and globally. Alliance members include print, digital and mobile publishers of original news content. Headquartered near Washington, D.C., in Arlington, Va., the association focuses on ensuring the future of news media through communication, research, advocacy and innovation. Information about the News Media Alliance (formerly NAA) can be found at www.newsmediaalliance.org.

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