Could a Google-California deal help save local journalism?

It's no secret that local news media has been hurting badly in recent years. Tens of thousands of journalists have been laid off, and many local outlets have folded altogether.

California's government is working on a partnership with Google that could, in theory, pump as much as $40 million every year into local newsrooms.

KNX News Chief Correspondent Charles Feldman discussed it with Steven Waldman, founder and president of the advocacy group Rebuild Local News.

“From what we’ve seen so far, and it’s nothing official, there would be a pool of money that was set aside in a nonprofit organization,” he said. “Google would contribute some money to it, the state would contribute some money to it, and then this nonprofit would essentially provide subsidy payments to local newsrooms around the state based on a formula.”

The draft proposal was created in response to an Assembly bill aimed at undoing the damage Google’s search monopoly has done to news outlets’ ad revenue. In April, Google began to remove news from its search results for California residents in an attempt to quash the legislation, which would force the tech giant to pay publishers for selling ads against their news content.

Waldman blamed the internet and “advertising fleeing local news” for the collapse of newspapers and broadcast stations over the past two decades. However, he said it isn’t clear yet whether the funds set aside by this proposal would be enough to make a dent in the problem.

“The news organizations themselves have to evolve and adapt and, you know, probably a lot of places that were almost entirely based on advertising are gonna have to look at subscriptions and things like that,” he said. “But I don't think that's gonna be enough.”

To close the funding gap, Waldman said news organizations will need to look to philanthropy or even public funding.

Want to get caught up on what's happening in SoCal every weekday afternoon? Click to follow The L.A. Local wherever you get podcasts.

“At the end of the day, we're gonna have to look at this and think, having good local information is a civic good, and it's gonna need to be supported by the community in the same way that we support libraries or other important civic institutions,” he said.

According to Politico , the draft proposal of the California-Google partnership would provide over $300 million across five years. At least $40 million would be set aside for unspecified AI initiatives.

Follow KNX News 97.1 FM
Twitter | Facebook | Instagram | TikTok