Bills
| 3.23.22

Should News Organizations Get a Temporary Anti-Trust Exemption to Negotiate Collectively With Facebook and Google? (H.R. 2054)

Do you support or oppose this bill?

What is H.R. 2054?

(Updated June 15, 2019)

This bill — the Journalism Competition and Preservation Act of 2019 — would establish a 48-month safe harbor for small publishers to band together to negotiate with dominant online platforms to improve the access to and quality of news online. This bill is narrowly tailored to ensure that coordination by news publishers is only in the interest of promoting trust and quality journalism. Specifically, it’d only allow coordination by news publishers if it: 1) directly relates to the quality, accuracy, attribution or branding, or interoperability of news; 2) benefits the entire industry, rather than just a few publishers, and is non-discriminatory to other news publishers; and 3) is directly related to and reasonably necessary for these negotiations, instead of being used for other purposes.

Argument in favor

Facebook and Google have gobbled up the advertising dollars that used to go to traditional news outlets, such as newspapers. The loss of this critical revenue has decimated newsrooms, affecting the quality of news coverage across the U.S. Allowing publishers to collectively negotiate with Facebook and Google is the only way to ensure they get a fair share of the ad revenue on these platforms.

Argument opposed

This bill would allow publishers to collude and exert undue influence, giving the news industry an unfair break that no other industry enjoys. It’s unfair to give one industry a break from anti-trust laws when all other for-profit businesses — including tech companies like Facebook and Google — are bound by anti-trust laws.

Impact

Advertisers; media organizations; news organizations; news publishers; newspapers; online content platforms; Facebook; Google; and antitrust law.

Cost of H.R. 2054

A CBO cost estimate is unavailable.

Additional Info

In-Depth: Rep. David Cicilline (D-RI) reintroduced this bill from the 115th Congress to allow local news outlets to negotiate collectively with large online platforms such as Facebook and Google:

“The free press is a cornerstone of our democracy. Journalists keep the public informed, root out corruption, and hold the powerful accountable. This bill will provide a much-needed lifeline to local publishers who have been crushed by Google and Facebook. It’s about time we take a stand on this issue.”

In comments after committing to reintroducing this bill in the current Congress, Rep. Cicilline argued that collective negotiation with Facebook and Google is the only solution to declining ad revenues at traditional news publishers:

“Despite record levels of online readership, news publishers — and local news in particular — have seen a steep decline in revenue during the rise of these technology giants. Whether it’s an online publisher or your local newspaper, we cannot have a democracy without a free and diverse press. Our country will not survive if we do not have shared facts, if corruption is not exposed and rooted out at all levels of government, and if power is not held to account. It is simply not possible.”

Rep. Doug Collins (R-GA), an original cosponsor of this bill, adds that community journalism has a “critical place” in American democracy:

“Community journalism holds a critical place in our democracy because it helps the American people understand and engage in civil society. Through our bipartisan legislation, we are opening the door for community newspapers to more fairly negotiate with large tech platforms that are operating in an increasingly anti-competitive space. This will help protect journalism, promote competition and allow communities to stay informed.”

The News Media Alliance, which represents over 2,000 local and national news publications, including The New York Times, The Washington Post, and The Wall Street Journal, supports this bill. Its president and CEO, David Chavern, says:

“This is a great day for newsrooms across our nation. We are grateful to Chairman Cicilline and Ranking Member Collins for their commitment to quality journalism and we look forward to news publishers having some relief from the platforms that currently regulate who receives our content and how much we are paid. Fair compensation for use of news content will allow news publishers to continue to reinvest in quality journalism.”

Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg has expressed willingness to begin paying news providers for the content that Facebook delivers to its users. He’s also acknowledged the role that “quality journalism” plays in building informed communities, and argued that Facebook has the means to support quality journalism for its users. Zuckerberg has previously suggested that Facebook could “potentially have a direct relationship with publishers to make sure that their content is available, if it’s really high-quality content.”

NetChoice — an association of commerce businesses that includes Google and Facebook — has signaled its potential opposition to this bill. NextChoice’s VP and general counsel, Carl Szabo, says this bill “empowers big media to circumvent antitrust laws and collude to grow their power.” The Taxpayers Protection Alliance’s president, David Williams, adds that companies “should get equal treatment under the law, instead of big media companies enjoying lucrative exemption from antitrust laws.”

This bill has four bipartisan cosponsors, including three Democrats and one Republican, in the 116th Congress. In the 115th Congress, Rep. Cicilline introduced this bill with the support of one cosponsor, Rep. Mark DeSaulnier (D-CA), and it didn’t receive a committee vote due to lack of Republican support in the GOP-held House in the 115th Congress. This Congress, with Rep. Collins’ support as the House Judiciary Committee’s top-ranking Republican, it may find more momentum.

This bill has the support of the News Media Alliance, American Society of News Editors (ASNE), National Newspaper Association (NNA), Association of Alternative Newsmedia (AAM), and 48 state press associations representing 49 states. During the 2018 midterm elections, publishers across the U.S. called on members of Congress to support this bill.


Of Note: The Pew Research Center reports that in 2017, a majority of Americans accessed the news through only two platforms: Facebook and Google. In 2018, those same two companies earned over $60 billion from online advertising — the majority of which was online ad revenue. Currently, the Facebook/Google duopoly accounts for 90 percent of all digital ad revenue growth and approximately 60 percent of total U.S. digital advertising.

By contrast, news publishers’ annual revenue has decreased by $31 billion since 2006, going from over $49 billion a year in 2006 to $16 billion in 2017. This has devastated newsrooms and directly impacted the quality and quantity of reliable journalism that Americans have access to. According to Pew, from 2008-2017, newsroom jobs decreased by 23 percent, with most of the losses coming at newspapers, where jobs fell by 45 percent from 2008 to 2017. Today, there are around 39,000 reporters, editors and photographers across the country — a 45 percent decline from 2006 numbers. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the downward trend in newsroom employment is set to continue, with a nine percent decline in jobs projected from 2016 to 2026.

As recently as January 2019, media outlets at the local and national levels across the country suffered mass layoffs, resulting in 800 media professionals’ losses of their jobs. After the January 2019 layoffs, HuffPost senior reporter Zach Carter tweeted:

“What is happening to American journalism isn’t a mystery. Google and Facebook are eating this industry alive and taking down American democracy with it. This isn’t happening because of market inefficiencies or consumer preferences or social value. It’s happening because two very large companies have taken the advertising revenue that journalism outlets rely on and replaced it with nothing.”

Current laws prohibit news publishers from taking collective action to negotiate with the large online platforms to develop common rules of the game. The News Media Alliance argues that “in the absence of a safe harbor, [Facebook and Google] will continue to entrench their dominant position in the online ad market and as de facto regulators of free speech on the internet,” thereby posing a “major threat to the future of high-quality journalism.”


Media:

Summary by Lorelei Yang

(Photo Credit: iStockphoto.com / bernie_photo)