FOUNDING FATHER and President Thomas Jefferson famously declared, “Were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter.”
Jefferson knew that local papers and independent media were vital to a thriving republic. Americans know it, too. They trust their local news outlets because they are free from the spin you commonly see in mainstream media. Seventy-three percent of U.S. adults have confidence in their local newspaper — compared with 55 percent for national network news.
The Founders could not have envisioned a future where nearly all news and information would be controlled by two private entities: Google and Facebook. Corporate tech monopolies are shuttering local newsrooms across the nation and regularly silencing conservative independent media outlets that don’t follow their ambiguous policies or preferred ideologies.
As local papers shutter across the country and innovative independent media companies struggle to maintain sustainable ventures, Big Tech’s impact on the media landscape has been acutely agonizing for people like me who have conservative political views. Local papers in small towns traditionally helped encapsulate and reflect the ideological diversity of our country. However, small towns are increasingly left with no local paper, creating “news deserts” that break down cohesion in their communities.
The primary challenge for smaller publishers and conservative media is that Google and Facebook get away with not properly compensating publishers for the value they generate for these platforms. Big Tech platforms have become the leading source for people to get their news. According to News Media Alliance, most New Hampshire residents say they get their news from Facebook and Google. But Facebook and Google don’t produce news — they distribute (and monetize) news from local publishers.
Big Tech’s dominant control over how our news is displayed, prioritized, and monetized has upended local journalism and broken the media market. So, while I’m traditionally hesitant to ask for government intervention, there is no market fix to this problem. Congress must act.
Among the antitrust bills that the Congress is considering this year, the Journalism Competition and Preservation Act (JCPA) is the only one that provides a direct check against Google and Facebook’s anti-competitive tactics, which can immediately put local journalism and independent media on a more level playing field.
Ironically, Big Tech is protected by current antitrust laws, which prevent local papers from negotiating as a group and having more stature against Big Tech’s vast size and dominance. The JCPA is a bipartisan bill that provides an antitrust “safe harbor” for small and local news publishers to band together to seek fair compensation from Facebook and Google for the use of their content. The JCPA will also help protect diverse points of view, especially conservative ones, because it is content-neutral and is inclusive of conservative publications, providing a necessary check on Big Tech.
Critics of the JCPA parrot Big Tech’s argument that the legislation would predominantly help large national publications. Not true. The JCPA is designed to help small publishers and would help flow subscription and advertising dollars back to local and independent media. The JCPA is supported by hundreds of local papers and major independent conservative media outlets like The Daily Caller, Newsmax, and The Washington Times.
Local journalism is about covering real life — the state football championship, the pancake breakfast at the local firehouse, the ribbon cutting on a new community center. It’s also about uncovering stories that readers care about in their local communities that would struggle to get national attention, like the disappearance of Harmony Montgomery and the YDC abuse scandal.
If Congress doesn’t pass the JCPA, Big Tech and Silicon Valley elites will continue unabated as the arbiters of speech. Congress must prioritize passing the JCPA to protect its constituents’ access to local reporting and independent media and ultimately ensure that Thomas Jefferson’s fear of a republic without robust independent journalism never comes to pass.
Kevin St. James is an Exeter firefighter/AEMT and a selectman in Kingston, where he lives.