Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., right, greats Trib Total Media President and CEO Jennifer Bertetto on Feb. 2 at a hearing to discuss Big Tech’s impact on news providers.
Douglas E. Schoen
In today’s politically charged climate, few issue or proposals garner bipartisan support.
Yet President Joe Biden signed legislation into law last year to modernize American’s infrastructure, an essential and long-overdue reform that won votes from dozens of congressional Republicans and nearly all Democrats.
This year, Biden and fellow Democrats in Congress have another opportunity to pass an important piece of legislation on a bipartisan basis: the Journalism Competition and Preservation Act, or JCPA.
The JCPA, initially circulated in 2018, was reintroduced last year by U.S. Sens. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., and John Kennedy, R-La. The Senate Judiciary’s Antitrust Subcommittee recently held a hearing on the legislation, which is designed to curb Big Tech’s monopoly over news and information.
If passed, the JCPA would allow news publishers to collectively negotiate — under the authority of a federal arbiter — with social media companies, namely Meta (Facebook) and Alphabet (Google), over how news is distributed online. This would make the news industry stronger and more equitable by ensuring that smaller media entities that own local news outlets receive adequate compensation for their content so they can continue to operate.
People are also reading…
As things are now, Big Tech is able to disseminate the intellectual property of media outlets without offering any compensation or benefit to these local newspapers and content providers. This is not only blatantly unfair — because it represents an expropriation of outlets’ work products without any economic benefit — but it is also one of the major reasons why local newspapers across the country are facing unprecedented challenges in remaining economically viable and the lifeblood of their communities.
For both practical and political reasons, Biden and congressional Democrats should devote considerable attention, energy and political capital to ensuring JCPA’s passage.
The necessity of implementing the reforms contained in JCPA is clear from a practical perspective. The world of news and information has changed dramatically over the last two decades, yet antitrust and antimonopoly laws haven’t changed with it.
As a result, local newspapers have been on life support throughout much of the 21st century. Google News, Facebook News and similar news aggregator sites drive traffic to their sites by presenting a constant flow of links to articles from thousands of smaller publishers. Parent companies such as Alphabet and Meta are then able to monetize their own advertising and related products — but they do so without fairly compensating smaller publishers for their material.
Indeed, the current copyright and antitrust laws in the U.S. do not mandate compensation to publishers, nor do they provide any legal basis for news publishers to be able to collectively negotiate with these online platforms.
Given that companies such as Alphabet and Meta have not taken the initiative to self-regulate by making meaningful changes to their practices, it is now the job of the federal government to step in and make news and information a freer and fairer industry.
The JCPA is part of a global trend in which governments have been cracking down on social media monopolies by strengthening their antitrust laws. The Canadian government is working on a proposal similar to the JCPA, and last year Australia became the first government to pass actual legislation.
In the U.S. alone over the last several months, Congress has held numerous antitrust hearings in which the CEOs of Big Tech social media companies were questioned about their approach of essentially bullying competitors into either accepting buyouts or face being destroyed.
Though JCPA has bipartisan support in the House and Senate, it faces opposition from some members of both parties.
Some critics — mainly on the left — are claiming the JCPA would enable large news outlets to make special deals with Big Tech companies, thus worsening the problem of monopolization in the news industry. But this is inaccurate. The bill does not allow big companies to negotiate alone or to broker side agreements under the threat of harsh penalties.
Those on the political right have contended the bill would actually give Big Tech more power to discriminate against smaller conservative publications for the purposes of demonetizing the outlet. Yet the JCPA is written to prevent Big Tech from engaging in this kind of behavior.
It’s clear that the time has come for the U.S. to rein in Big Tech.
Politically, the Democratic Party needs to show voters that it can deliver on important bipartisan reforms.
Biden should address the JCPA in his State of the Union speech next month and urge its passage. Congressional Democrats should publicly promote and sell the bill to Americans.
Ultimately, if America is to have a news and information industry that is truly free and fair, we must stop allowing Big Tech companies to engage in market manipulation without consequence. We can start by passing the JCPA into law.
Douglas E. Schoen is author of “The Power of the Vote: Electing Presidents.”
He wrote this for the Chicago Tribune.
Get opinion pieces, letters and editorials sent directly to your inbox weekly!