10 ms·

California Assembly votes to pass the Journalism Preservation Act

37 points by somid3 3y ago

baggy_trough 3y ago
Does California never learn?
cgearhart 3y ago
Seems really silly to only require that 70% of the fee is paid to staff. Why not get at the root of the problem and require the news org to reinvest at least 70% of their profit back into their business in order to even qualify for the fee? Or just provide public funding for public journalism? Or limit the ability of social media to display ads with news content? I dunno. This seems like a really lazy “solution”.
- pawelmurias 3y ago
  [flagged]
  - Larrikin 3y ago
    So the guillotine was invented for people working at the BBC, PBS, and NPR? They should be killed for receiving government money?
avsteele 3y ago
I'd recommend reading the actual bill if you want to see how (apparently) nuts it is. https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billNavClient.xhtml?bill_id=202320240AB886 https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billNavClient.xhtml... From my reading of the preamble: 1) A 'digital journalism provider' (DJP, e.g. a newspaper) submits a notice to the platform (e.g meta) each month 2) The platform must then remit to the provider some fraction of all its advertising revenue. 3) The platform is forbidden from 'retaliating' (???) again the DJP by (for example) not linking to it in the future That third part cant possibly be constitutional.
- BitwiseFool 3y ago
  >"That third part cant possibly be constitutional." The Californian legislative mindset appears to be based on passing bold and far reaching laws and then letting the courts determine constitutionality. They don't seem to have reservations about their own authority.
  - 908B64B197 3y ago
    Wait until some far-alt-right starts pushing some conspiracy theory or outright racist content. "This holocaust denial was brought to you by the California Legislature that prohibits social media platforms from deciding to ban this content".
    - jasonlotito 3y ago
      "This section does not prohibit a covered platform from, and does not impose liability on a covered platform for, enforcing its terms of service against an eligible journalism provider."
      - nullc 3y ago
        "Our TOS prohibits charging for inbound links." Solved.
        jasonlotito 3y ago
        How does that solve the comment I was replying to? The concern that content the provider wouldn't want on their site would have to display it? Your comment doesn't "solve" anything. Did you reply to the right comment?
        hellojesus 3y ago
        They were saying that if TOS supercedes this law, then you could get around the de-linking retaliation by updating your TOS to forbid charging for link sharing. It was an extension of your statement applied back onto the law, not a rebuttle against your claim that content would no longer be moderated-able.
mistrial9 3y ago
quick criticism here from the 'vested side of society without showing any alternatives.. where are the other solutions? 'local news dead, stock market goes up' headline for what, ten years now?
- zdragnar 3y ago
  In a world where people interact with their friends online more than in meat space, and hardly know their own neighbors at all, local news isn't going to survive very well. This particular strategy has been tried in various forms in various places, and it never works. Any time you see someone say the phrase "doing nothing is not an option", you know that they are making excuses for doing something that has proven, time and again, to be just as effective as doing nothing at all.
  - CharlesW 3y ago
    > In a world where people interact with their friends online more than in meat space, and hardly know their own neighbors at all, local news isn't going to survive very well. Local news is alive and well! It just moved to Facebook, NextDoor, etc.
  - tivert 3y ago
    > Any time you see someone say the phrase "doing nothing is not an option", you know that they are making excuses for doing something that has proven, time and again, to be just as effective as doing nothing at all. No, you're going to far. "Doing nothing is not an option", means "don't wait for a perfect solution." "Doing nothing at all" is rarely "just as effective" as an imperfect solution, at least when it comes to the problem under discussion. It's also worth noting there are frequently people who benefit from certain problems or who are otherwise uninterested in solving them for selfish reasons. Those people really like to push the "do nothing" option.
    - zdragnar 3y ago
      This has been done before elsewhere, and it was exactly as effective as doing nothing. I'm not much for gambling, but I'd put money on this attempt ending the same way. It's a mindset that is action-biased. Results don't matter, being seen to be doing things is what matters, apparently.
tomschwiha 3y ago
https://archive.is/sCOU2 https://archive.is/sCOU2
greatgib 3y ago
> The bill is intended to shore up California’s struggling media outlets, including ethnic media and media serving so-called “news deserts.” I think that this illustrate well the shameful impact of lobbying. Because of their mediocrity, media are dying. This is normal free market that is working well. Instead they use of their influence to steal income from other business.
- throwaway2203 3y ago
  Not sure I agree. Local journalism is a social good. How else will you find out what your city council is up to? It's not like that's reported on CNN or Fox. And if there are no journalists asking questions, how will you know they've been selling permits to their cousin developer for cents on the dollar while jacking up your taxes?
  - pclmulqdq 3y ago
    Go to the meetings or talk to people in town or follow your neighbors who care on Twitter/Facebook? If you really care what happens at your city council, and you live in a city of less than 1 million people, you can generally meet all of them and know what's happening. Cities greater than 1 million often support a regional-level paper which also covers city news.
    - NeuNeurosis 3y ago
      So everyone in the city of less than a 1 million should go? What about the meag cities? How are people supposed to have time, energy or resources to achieve that? The news has always been about democratizing information that impacts civic life, hence why a "free press" was written in the constitution. Its a civic service that needs supported and the current model of incentives no longer supports adequately. There are no easy answers to address the dying of newspapers but saying that people should just go to the meetings is not an answer.
      - pclmulqdq 3y ago
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
Barrin92 3y ago
I'm not sold on the direct compensation from platforms to journalists just because as a mechanism it seems murky but the underlying rationale is I think correct. I'd prefer tech companies just get taxed much more aggressively and local news can draw and apply for public funds in some transparent way. But journalistic institutions have important functions. To pick a fairly modern example look at John Carreyrou at the WSJ blowing wide open the Theranos scandal despite the fact that Rupert Murdoch had significant financial stake in the company and owns the newspaper. There is a level of investment into investigative journalism and integrity and firewalls there that you do not have at social media companies. Most of them don't care at all, and if they pretend to you get the 'Twitter Files'.
ouid 3y ago
Maybe to preserbe journalism, we should not enshrine into law the act of funding an institution that informs the people with one that lies to them. You want to save journalism? Make advertising illegal.
LatteLazy 3y ago
I would not mind a bill that required contributions towards long, well researched, investigative pieces. However 99% of "news" articles I see these days are just re-writes of government/corporate press releases without question or "He/She said" pieces. I understand why, we're in an attention economy, and baseless nonsense with shock factor is quicker and more profitable than complex analysis. However encouraging such BS is bad enough, requiring people to fund it is actively harmful.
holler 3y ago
This is ridiculous, and it passed 46-6 which is quite baffling but not surprising given it's California. I worked at a local newspaper in the past and I can't tell you how many people they employed for things not central to core journalism. Reflecting back now, it's not wonder they eventually downsized significantly and had to vacate the large building they'd been in for decades. They could have cut huge swaths of people, just focusing on journalism, and saved a ton of money.
- KerrAvon 3y ago
  It sounds like the law has a requirement for a qualifying news org to spend most of the revenue on journalism? Are you sure you're opposed to the actual contents of the law?
  - holler 3y ago
    I'm against gov overreach and have serious doubts the government could even properly audit a paper to see whether those funds were used directly for journalism.
- tivert 3y ago
  > I worked at a local newspaper in the past and I can't tell you how many people they employed for things not central to core journalism. At least try to tell us. Give examples. > Reflecting back now, it's not wonder they eventually downsized significantly and had to vacate the large building they'd been in for decades. They could have cut huge swaths of people, just focusing on journalism, and saved a ton of money. That kind of sounds unrealistic. Your ideal sounds like an army with only front line troops. It'll get defeated because those troops won't get fed and will quickly run out of ammunition. Support functions are important in viable organizations.
  - holler 3y ago
    > At least try to tell us. Give examples. Sure, here's one. At the time (~12 years ago), Groupon was a booming business. This newspaper (and many others) decided to try and get in on the action by creating their own local versions of daily deal sites. That team just focused on the local newspaper's version of daily deal probably employed at least 20 people, including resources from the web team that had to build and maintain a deal site akin to Groupon. All of that in sum likely had a high price tag, and like Groupon itself, eventually puttered and faded away. Is it their fault for trying to find a way to increase revenue? I don't know. At the same time they were doing that, the newspaper itself (both print and online), was bloated with advertising, to the point where the website was almost unusable.
SnowProblem 3y ago
I was reading Weaving the Web, the story of Tim Berners Lee and the creation of the web, there's a section on misunderstanding about links. In 1999. Wish this were still not a misunderstanding today. Myth Two: "Making a link to an external document makes the first document more valuable, and therefore is something that should be paid for." It is true that a document is made more valuable by links to other relevant, high-quality documents, but this doesn't mean anything is owed to the people who created those documents. If anything, they should be glad that more people are being referred to them. If someone at a meeting recommends me as a good contact, does that person expect me to pay him for making reference to me? Hardly.
beej71 3y ago
I don't get how this is compatible with copyright law or the First Amendment. Copyright law won't allow copyrighting a link URL. Fair use allows publishing short bits of copyrighted material (to varying degrees under varying circumstances). The First Amendment allows me to publish links. The First Amendment allows me to decide what I do or do not publish. If news agencies have a copyright case, they should make a copyright case and get royalties.

37 points by somid3 3y ago

Does California never learn?

Seems really silly to only require that 70% of the fee is paid to staff. Why not get at the root of the problem and require the news org to reinvest at least 70% of their profit back into their business in order to even qualify for the fee? Or just provide public funding for public journalism? Or limit the ability of social media to display ads with news content? I dunno. This seems like a really lazy “solution”.

pawelmurias 3y ago
[flagged]
- Larrikin 3y ago
  So the guillotine was invented for people working at the BBC, PBS, and NPR? They should be killed for receiving government money?

avsteele 3y ago

I'd recommend reading the actual bill if you want to see how (apparently) nuts it is. https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billNavClient.xhtml?bill_id=202320240AB886 https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billNavClient.xhtml... From my reading of the preamble: 1) A 'digital journalism provider' (DJP, e.g. a newspaper) submits a notice to the platform (e.g meta) each month 2) The platform must then remit to the provider some fraction of all its advertising revenue. 3) The platform is forbidden from 'retaliating' (???) again the DJP by (for example) not linking to it in the future That third part cant possibly be constitutional.

BitwiseFool 3y ago
>"That third part cant possibly be constitutional." The Californian legislative mindset appears to be based on passing bold and far reaching laws and then letting the courts determine constitutionality. They don't seem to have reservations about their own authority.
- 908B64B197 3y ago
  Wait until some far-alt-right starts pushing some conspiracy theory or outright racist content. "This holocaust denial was brought to you by the California Legislature that prohibits social media platforms from deciding to ban this content".
  - jasonlotito 3y ago
    "This section does not prohibit a covered platform from, and does not impose liability on a covered platform for, enforcing its terms of service against an eligible journalism provider."
    - nullc 3y ago
      "Our TOS prohibits charging for inbound links." Solved.
      - jasonlotito 3y ago
        How does that solve the comment I was replying to? The concern that content the provider wouldn't want on their site would have to display it? Your comment doesn't "solve" anything. Did you reply to the right comment?
        hellojesus 3y ago
        They were saying that if TOS supercedes this law, then you could get around the de-linking retaliation by updating your TOS to forbid charging for link sharing. It was an extension of your statement applied back onto the law, not a rebuttle against your claim that content would no longer be moderated-able.

mistrial9 3y ago

quick criticism here from the 'vested side of society without showing any alternatives.. where are the other solutions? 'local news dead, stock market goes up' headline for what, ten years now?

zdragnar 3y ago
In a world where people interact with their friends online more than in meat space, and hardly know their own neighbors at all, local news isn't going to survive very well. This particular strategy has been tried in various forms in various places, and it never works. Any time you see someone say the phrase "doing nothing is not an option", you know that they are making excuses for doing something that has proven, time and again, to be just as effective as doing nothing at all.
- CharlesW 3y ago
  > In a world where people interact with their friends online more than in meat space, and hardly know their own neighbors at all, local news isn't going to survive very well. Local news is alive and well! It just moved to Facebook, NextDoor, etc.
- tivert 3y ago
  > Any time you see someone say the phrase "doing nothing is not an option", you know that they are making excuses for doing something that has proven, time and again, to be just as effective as doing nothing at all. No, you're going to far. "Doing nothing is not an option", means "don't wait for a perfect solution." "Doing nothing at all" is rarely "just as effective" as an imperfect solution, at least when it comes to the problem under discussion. It's also worth noting there are frequently people who benefit from certain problems or who are otherwise uninterested in solving them for selfish reasons. Those people really like to push the "do nothing" option.
  - zdragnar 3y ago
    This has been done before elsewhere, and it was exactly as effective as doing nothing. I'm not much for gambling, but I'd put money on this attempt ending the same way. It's a mindset that is action-biased. Results don't matter, being seen to be doing things is what matters, apparently.

tomschwiha 3y ago

https://archive.is/sCOU2 https://archive.is/sCOU2

greatgib 3y ago

> The bill is intended to shore up California’s struggling media outlets, including ethnic media and media serving so-called “news deserts.” I think that this illustrate well the shameful impact of lobbying. Because of their mediocrity, media are dying. This is normal free market that is working well. Instead they use of their influence to steal income from other business.

throwaway2203 3y ago
Not sure I agree. Local journalism is a social good. How else will you find out what your city council is up to? It's not like that's reported on CNN or Fox. And if there are no journalists asking questions, how will you know they've been selling permits to their cousin developer for cents on the dollar while jacking up your taxes?
- pclmulqdq 3y ago
  Go to the meetings or talk to people in town or follow your neighbors who care on Twitter/Facebook? If you really care what happens at your city council, and you live in a city of less than 1 million people, you can generally meet all of them and know what's happening. Cities greater than 1 million often support a regional-level paper which also covers city news.
  - NeuNeurosis 3y ago
    So everyone in the city of less than a 1 million should go? What about the meag cities? How are people supposed to have time, energy or resources to achieve that? The news has always been about democratizing information that impacts civic life, hence why a "free press" was written in the constitution. Its a civic service that needs supported and the current model of incentives no longer supports adequately. There are no easy answers to address the dying of newspapers but saying that people should just go to the meetings is not an answer.
    - pclmulqdq 3y ago

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

Barrin92 3y ago

I'm not sold on the direct compensation from platforms to journalists just because as a mechanism it seems murky but the underlying rationale is I think correct. I'd prefer tech companies just get taxed much more aggressively and local news can draw and apply for public funds in some transparent way. But journalistic institutions have important functions. To pick a fairly modern example look at John Carreyrou at the WSJ blowing wide open the Theranos scandal despite the fact that Rupert Murdoch had significant financial stake in the company and owns the newspaper. There is a level of investment into investigative journalism and integrity and firewalls there that you do not have at social media companies. Most of them don't care at all, and if they pretend to you get the 'Twitter Files'.

ouid 3y ago

Maybe to preserbe journalism, we should not enshrine into law the act of funding an institution that informs the people with one that lies to them. You want to save journalism? Make advertising illegal.

LatteLazy 3y ago

I would not mind a bill that required contributions towards long, well researched, investigative pieces. However 99% of "news" articles I see these days are just re-writes of government/corporate press releases without question or "He/She said" pieces. I understand why, we're in an attention economy, and baseless nonsense with shock factor is quicker and more profitable than complex analysis. However encouraging such BS is bad enough, requiring people to fund it is actively harmful.

holler 3y ago

This is ridiculous, and it passed 46-6 which is quite baffling but not surprising given it's California. I worked at a local newspaper in the past and I can't tell you how many people they employed for things not central to core journalism. Reflecting back now, it's not wonder they eventually downsized significantly and had to vacate the large building they'd been in for decades. They could have cut huge swaths of people, just focusing on journalism, and saved a ton of money.

KerrAvon 3y ago
It sounds like the law has a requirement for a qualifying news org to spend most of the revenue on journalism? Are you sure you're opposed to the actual contents of the law?
- holler 3y ago
  I'm against gov overreach and have serious doubts the government could even properly audit a paper to see whether those funds were used directly for journalism.
tivert 3y ago
> I worked at a local newspaper in the past and I can't tell you how many people they employed for things not central to core journalism. At least try to tell us. Give examples. > Reflecting back now, it's not wonder they eventually downsized significantly and had to vacate the large building they'd been in for decades. They could have cut huge swaths of people, just focusing on journalism, and saved a ton of money. That kind of sounds unrealistic. Your ideal sounds like an army with only front line troops. It'll get defeated because those troops won't get fed and will quickly run out of ammunition. Support functions are important in viable organizations.
- holler 3y ago
  > At least try to tell us. Give examples. Sure, here's one. At the time (~12 years ago), Groupon was a booming business. This newspaper (and many others) decided to try and get in on the action by creating their own local versions of daily deal sites. That team just focused on the local newspaper's version of daily deal probably employed at least 20 people, including resources from the web team that had to build and maintain a deal site akin to Groupon. All of that in sum likely had a high price tag, and like Groupon itself, eventually puttered and faded away. Is it their fault for trying to find a way to increase revenue? I don't know. At the same time they were doing that, the newspaper itself (both print and online), was bloated with advertising, to the point where the website was almost unusable.

SnowProblem 3y ago

I was reading Weaving the Web, the story of Tim Berners Lee and the creation of the web, there's a section on misunderstanding about links. In 1999. Wish this were still not a misunderstanding today. Myth Two: "Making a link to an external document makes the first document more valuable, and therefore is something that should be paid for." It is true that a document is made more valuable by links to other relevant, high-quality documents, but this doesn't mean anything is owed to the people who created those documents. If anything, they should be glad that more people are being referred to them. If someone at a meeting recommends me as a good contact, does that person expect me to pay him for making reference to me? Hardly.

beej71 3y ago

I don't get how this is compatible with copyright law or the First Amendment. Copyright law won't allow copyrighting a link URL. Fair use allows publishing short bits of copyrighted material (to varying degrees under varying circumstances). The First Amendment allows me to publish links. The First Amendment allows me to decide what I do or do not publish. If news agencies have a copyright case, they should make a copyright case and get royalties.