California is beginning to address the crisis facing local journalism by distributing nearly $20 million this year to local news organizations. But the Governor’s Office of Business and Economic Development is about to fumble the opportunity by having the government pick winners and losers — with journalists being the losers.
Local news has suffered from declining revenue for years, all while tech giants such as Google have used the outlets’ content without compensation to generate enormous revenue. California’s efforts to reverse this trend began with legislation that would have compensated publishers for their losses based on how many reporters they employ. It sailed through the California Assembly and the Senate Judiciary Committee in 2024 before being halted when the governor’s office made a deal directly with Google.
Under this deal, the state would contribute $20 million and Google would provide $15 million in the first year of a new five-year program that would distribute money to news organizations directly on a per-journalist basis. It’s far from enough to make up for what Google has taken from California publishers, but it’s a start.
Unfortunately, that number has already dropped to $10 million from each source, and newly proposed plans for distributing funds further undermine the core goal of the program — compensating local news publishers for their losses on a per-journalist basis. A set of new formulas for distributing funds is counterproductive and likely illegal. This backpedaling is why the News/Media Alliance had always preferred a legislative solution — fair, transparent and under the rule of law. But now, with this program already established and its implementation in flux, the Office of Business and Economic Development must change course.
In a move that directly contradicts the requirement to provide funding based on the number of journalists a publication employs, the office is now proposing to cap the compensation any publication can receive at 20 journalists. Treating a newsroom with 20 journalists the same as a newsroom with 200 journalists makes no sense. Large publishers are no less vulnerable to the economic headwinds hurting the industry than smaller ones. If anything, their employees are more costly, as they often receive higher pay and better benefits than those of smaller publications.
This proposal would fail to support nearly a thousand California journalists, if not more, who work for larger employers. This will inevitably lead to job losses and a reduced ability to provide Californians with quality journalism. Publishers with more reporters are often the ones most able to conduct important in-depth investigative journalism, but that kind of journalism is expensive.
The Office of Business and Economic Development’s proposal continues to miss the mark by also dividing the state into 13 arbitrary regions, without taking into account where news publishers are actually located and their coverage areas. Publishers would be placed in the region where their headquarters are located, but many publishers — including the Los Angeles Times, one of the state’s largest media organizations — cover California communities in multiple proposed regions. The allocation should be focused on publishers and journalists, not arbitrary geographic borders.
To make matters worse, as part of the distribution system, the “Pro Rata Journalist Fund” would lock publishers into a time-consuming grant application process. Rather than simply distributing the funds based on the number of reporters, the proposal allows the state government to pick winners and losers by choosing which applications will be “prioritized.” Who should be prioritized is based entirely on open-ended questions which will allow the government to subjectively pick grantees. The personal or institutional preferences of the grant-makers will inevitably influence how the program’s money is distributed, giving the state government clear financial leverage to reward, or punish, news coverage. This proposal violates the independence and freedom of the press that is enshrined in the California and U.S. constitutions.
This proposal strays too far from the original intent of the fund. The state should scrap the convoluted and arbitrary rules in favor of an allocation based on the number of journalists at each publication. That was the directive and agreement among the Legislature, the governor, the publishers and the journalists who worked so hard to establish the Civic Media Program, and it’s what would work best for California.
Danielle Coffey is the president and chief executive of the nonprofit News/Media Alliance, of which the Los Angeles Times is a member.
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Ideas expressed in the piece
- The article argues that California’s new Civic Media Program, which will distribute nearly $20 million to local news organizations this year, is being undermined by how the Governor’s Office of Business and Economic Development plans to implement it, allowing the government to “pick winners and losers” among news outlets.
- The piece emphasizes that local journalism has been financially battered while tech platforms such as Google have profited from news content without compensating publishers; it notes that California’s original legislative approach would have directly compensated publishers based on the number of reporters they employ, a framework the article describes as fair, transparent and rooted in law.
- The column recounts that this bill advanced in 2024 before being sidelined when the governor’s office struck a deal with Google: initially, the state was to contribute $20 million and Google $15 million in the first year of a five‑year program, with funds distributed to newsrooms on a per‑journalist basis; the article contends that even though this sum was insufficient compared with what platforms extract from publishers, it represented a meaningful start.
- The piece criticizes subsequent changes in the deal, under which both the state and Google reduced their first‑year contributions to $10 million, and argues that this backpedaling weakens the program’s ability to offset publishers’ losses and undercuts the original commitment.
- The article contends that new formulas proposed by the Office of Business and Economic Development violate the directive to pay out funds based on the number of journalists: specifically, it criticizes a cap that treats any newsroom with 20 or more journalists the same, arguing that this ignores the higher costs and broader responsibilities of larger newsrooms and would effectively deny support to hundreds of journalists at bigger outlets.
- The piece maintains that larger publishers are just as vulnerable to industry headwinds as smaller ones and are often the only organizations able to sustain resource‑intensive investigative and enterprise reporting; by capping support, the proposal, the article warns, will lead to job losses and diminish the quality and depth of journalism available to Californians.
- The article also objects to carving the state into 13 regions for distributing funds, arguing that these geographic boundaries are arbitrary and do not reflect where publishers actually operate or which communities they serve; it notes that large outlets, such as the Los Angeles Times, cover multiple regions, and contends that allocations should track where journalists work rather than rigid regional lines.
- The column criticizes the proposed “Pro Rata Journalist Fund” structure for requiring publishers to engage in a time‑consuming grant application process in which state officials will “prioritize” certain applicants based on subjective, open‑ended questions, effectively giving government broad discretion over which outlets receive support.
- The piece warns that such a discretionary grant system gives the state financial leverage over publishers, creating a risk that officials could reward favorable coverage and punish critical reporting; it argues this infringes on press independence and conflicts with protections in both the California and U.S. constitutions.
- Ultimately, the article calls on the state to discard what it describes as convoluted, arbitrary rules and to return to allocating money purely on a per‑journalist basis, asserting that this was the shared understanding among lawmakers, the governor, publishers and journalists when the Civic Media Program was created and that it remains the best approach to sustaining California’s news ecosystem.
Different views on the topic
- In contrast, earlier coverage of the 2024 agreement notes that state leaders and several publishers initially saw the compromise with Google as a pragmatic victory after more sweeping “must‑pay” legislation faced strong opposition from tech companies; the deal was described as a way to secure immediate, substantial support for local newsrooms without imposing new taxes on Californians[3].
- The governor’s office has characterized the agreement as a “major breakthrough in ensuring the survival of newsrooms,” arguing that it leverages tech‑industry resources while avoiding the uncertainty and potential litigation that could have come with forcing platforms to pay for content through novel legal mechanisms[3].
- Reporting on the revised deal highlights that the program’s chief legislative architect has framed the public‑private structure as part of a broader, collaborative solution, stating that “sustaining local journalism will take all of us — government, philanthropy, and the tech sector — stepping up together”; this perspective holds that shared responsibility, rather than a single, rigid compensation formula, is essential for long‑term sustainability[2].
- News accounts of the budget negotiations stress that the state’s pullback from the original multi‑year funding levels was driven by a significant budget deficit, and officials have argued that, within those constraints, California has still met its first‑year obligation and kept the framework intact; the state’s finance director has insisted “there’s no going back on the deal,” underscoring that the $10 million contribution has already been made and that Google has matched it[1][5].
- Coverage of the program’s design notes that Google’s contributions were explicitly contingent on state funding, mirroring arrangements in Canada; supporters of the compromise contend that, without such a conditional structure, California risked receiving no platform‑backed journalism fund at all, especially once lawmakers abandoned more aggressive proposals opposed by major tech firms[1][3][5].
- The official description of the California Civic Media Program emphasizes that it is a $20‑million public‑private partnership intended to “support the work of California’s journalists and strengthen community engagement statewide,” and that GO‑Biz will consult an advisory board made up of news leaders on how best to distribute funds; the program’s design, according to state materials, relies on independent third‑party administrators with experience running multimillion‑dollar journalism grant initiatives, which supporters say is meant to ensure expertise and guard against direct political control over grants[4].
- Earlier reports on the underlying legislation note that the new fund was structured so that money would be overseen by news industry groups and distributed according to the number of journalists, with specific portions reserved for smaller and ethnic media outlets[3]; advocates for community and ethnic media have welcomed those set‑asides as a way to keep large chains from absorbing most of the support and to ensure that historically underserved communities benefit from the program.
- Related initiatives have been cited by supporters as evidence that California is still expanding, not retreating from, its public investment in journalism: a separate $15‑million allocation is funding the California Local News Fellowship program, billed as the nation’s largest publicly funded journalism initiative, which currently supports more than 70 full‑time reporters and will expand to include editing fellows and business‑sustainability training for newsrooms[6].
- The fellowship program’s backers argue that directing resources toward early‑career reporters, editors and leadership training — particularly in partnership with organizations such as the Maynard Institute, California Black Media, the Latino Media Collaborative and American Community Media — is a complementary strategy that builds long‑term capacity and diversity in local news, rather than focusing solely on compensating existing payrolls[6].
- At the same time, some journalists’ unions and labor advocates have criticized other aspects of the broader Google‑California arrangement, particularly the plan to devote tens of millions of dollars to artificial intelligence research and accelerator programs; those groups argue that AI investment could threaten jobs and would steer funds away from frontline reporters, underscoring that there is no unified consensus within the industry on how any journalism fund — legislative or administrative — should be structured[2][3].