SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — California will become the first U.S. state to dedicate millions of dollars from taxpayer money and tech companies to funding journalism and AI research under a new agreement announced Wednesday.
Under the agreement, the first of its kind in the nation, the state and the tech companies will pay a combined total of about $250 million over five years to support California-based news organizations and launch AI research programs. The effort is set to begin in 2025 with $100 million in the first year, with the majority of the funding going to news organizations, said Buffy Wicks, a Democratic state representative who brokered the agreement.
“This agreement is a major step forward in ensuring the survival of news organizations across California and strengthening local journalism in California, leveraging the vast resources of the tech industry without imposing new taxes on Californians,” Gov. Gavin Newsom said in a statement. “Not only will this agreement provide funding to support hundreds of new journalists, it will help rebuild a strong, dynamic California newsroom for years to come and strengthen the vital role of journalism in our democracy.”
Wicks' office did not immediately respond to specific questions about how much funding would come from the state, which news organizations would be targeted or how much money would go toward the AI research program.
The agreement effectively ends a years-long battle between the tech giants and lawmakers over Wicks' proposal to require companies like Google, Facebook and Microsoft to pay media companies a percentage of advertising revenue for links to their content.
The bill, modeled on a Canadian law aimed at providing financial support to local news organizations, drew fierce opposition from the tech industry, which ran ads attacking the bill over the summer, and Google tried to pressure lawmakers to drop the bill by temporarily removing news sites from search results for some users in April.
“This partnership is a cross-sector commitment to support a free and vibrant press and ensure local news outlets across the state can continue their important work,” Wicks said in a statement. “This is just the beginning.”
California has tried a variety of ways to try to halt the loss of journalism jobs, which have fallen sharply as traditional media companies struggle to turn a profit in the digital age. More than 2,500 newspapers have closed in the U.S. since 2005, according to Northwestern University's Medill School of Journalism. More than 100 news organizations have closed in California in the past decade, according to Wicks' office.
Wednesday's agreement is backed by the California News Publishers Association, which represents more than 700 news organizations, Google parent Alphabet, and Open AI. But journalists, including those with the Media Guild of the West, slammed the deal, saying it would harm news organizations in California.
State Sen. Steve Glaser, who authored a bill to give news organizations a tax credit for hiring full-time reporters, said the agreement “seriously undermines our efforts toward a long-term solution to save independent journalism.”
State Senate President Pro Tempore Mike Maguire also said the agreement doesn't do enough to address California's dire situation.
“Newsrooms are being hollowed out in this state while tech platforms are raking in billions of dollars in profits,” he said in a statement. “I am concerned that this proposal underfunds newspapers and local media and does not adequately address the inequities facing our industry.”
