Year in Review: 2020
While many people would like to forget 2020, there has been some progress in the journalism field that deserves to be remembered. In its first year, the Center for Journalism & Liberty made strides in our mission: to ensure the nation’s news media remains independent and robust.
Throughout 2020, we produced works revealing how Big Tech platforms, like Facebook and Google, actively harm the news media industry, despite their philanthropic funding of select journalism initiatives. As the economic reverberations of the pandemic rocked local news outlets, the CJL published articles and research spotlighting nonprofit business models and advocating against further consolidations within the newspaper industry.
In showcasing the works of our colleagues and contributors from 2020, we hope our review offers an optimistic look at the year underway, at the top guided by a new administration that respects the Fourth Estate and democracy.
For questions or inquiries about our work, contact us here.
March
Jody Brannon joined the Open Markets Institute to direct the Center for Journalism & Liberty. Brannon brings more than 30 years of multimedia journalism experience, having worked for a collection of publications and news outlets, including The Seattle Times, The Washington Post, USA Today, National Geographic and more.
June
Daniel Hanley, a policy analyst and reporter for Open Markets Institute, published a research paper in the Connecticut Public Interest Law Journal on how monopolistic tech firms, such as Facebook, Google and Amazon, engage in anti-competitive conduct. His paper explained the harmful effects of this behavior across varying sectors, including the news media industry.
Fellow and academic adviser Nikki Usher published an op-ed on Medium that highlights the dangers of the consolidation trend within the newspaper industry, especially in light of the pandemic’s ruinous effect on the economy.
July
With a statement from CJL director Jody Brannon, we issued a press release condemning the Department of Justice’s decision to allow Liberty Media to increase its stake in iHeartMedia. The release stressed the necessity for a merger moratorium as the deal’s approval encourages media consolidation and weakens local journalism.
The CJL welcomed its first interns, Ray Garcia and Lee Harris, to the team.
August
Johnny Ryan, a renowned global privacy expert, joins the CJL as a Trans-Atlantic Board adviser and Open Markets Institute as a fellow. His insight and commentary has appeared in The New York Times, The Economist, WIRED and more.
In sponsorship with up to 40 organizations, we contributed to the Breaking the Power of Big Tech webinar. The event was held in response to the House Antitrust Subcommittee’s hearing with the CEOs of Apple, Facebook, Google and Amazon. The all-star panel included notable figures from Maurice BP-Weeks, co-executive director of the Action Center on Race and the Economy, to Sandeep Vaheesan, OMI’s legal director (and a guest appearance from Rep. David Cicilline, chairman of the Antitrust Subcommittee).
The CJL launched its presence on LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter and Medium.
September
Claire O’Brien, a journalism major at the University of Illinois-Champaign, joined the team as CJL’s autumn intern.
Daniel Hanley published an op-ed with WIRED about the abandoned merger between leading recommendation engines Taboola and Outbrain; a deal would increase consolidation within the advertising industry, further harming the news publishers struggling to compete with Facebook and Google’s digital ad dominance.
CJL published a report by Steven Waldman, president of Report for America, titled A Replanting Strategy: Saving Local Newspapers Squeezed by Hedge Funds. The paper explains ways to convert struggling legacy newspapers into community-grounded nonprofit groups. Waldman led a webinar to explore the nuances of his proposals, welcoming insights from Fraser Nelson, VP of business innovation at The Salt Lake Tribune; Denise Rorark Barnes, publisher of the Washington Informer; Elizabeth Hansen, lead researcher of the News Sustainability and Business Models project at Harvard’s Shorenstein Center; and Marc Hand, CEO of Public Media Venture Group.
Contributing scholar Michael Clay Carey, a professor of journalism at Samford University, published an academic article that examines the challenges facing local news outlets in Appalachia, and advocates for local control and ownership of media groups that reside in these communities.
Contributor scholar Christopher Martin, a professor of communication studies and digital journalism at the University of Northern Iowa, published a study that investigates how newspapers in Iowa have maintained resilience in times of financial peril.
Barry Lynn, executive director of Open Markets Institute, published an article in Harper’s Magazine on how Big Tech companies control our lives — and at times, news publishers. The piece is an adaptation from his book, Liberty from All Masters: The New American Autocracy vs. the Will of the People, which was released on Sept. 29.
OMI policy director Phillip Longman, Daniel Hanley and Barry Lynn produced a white paper titled Basics: Financing Free Speech that offers a typology of the legislation and policies that have historically been used to limit the market power of dominant media players and to bolster competition.
Fellow Nikki Usher published her research on how Facebook and Google’s philanthropic funding of journalism proves counterintuitive as their anti-competitive business practices harm the news industry.
October
Research and reporting intern Ray Garcia published a blogpost on Medium about Steven Waldman’s Replanting Strategy and how it can revitalize waning legacy publications in the face of an expanding news desert. Garcia also published a piece on the House Antitrust Subcommittee’s report, delving into the aspects of how Big Tech threatens U.S. journalistic institutions.
OMI’s Barry Lynn takes part in a Galley by CJR with Mathew Ingram to discuss the Justice Department’s landmark antitrust case against Google while also explaining the origins of the Center for Journalism & Liberty.
OMI enforcement director Sally Hubbard published an op-ed with CNN in response to the Senate Commerce Committee hearing on Section 230 in which she advocates for the breakup of Big Tech and antitrust reform — among other moves to weaken the platforms’ control over speech and the press.
November
CJL scholarly contributor Clay Carey published an op-ed with The Birmingham Watch on the Rebuild Local News plan, encouraging the initiative to also consider efforts to preserve and promote local editorial control and ownership of media organizations.
Adviser Ethan Zuckerman, director of the Institute for Digital Public Infrastructure at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, published an essay in the form of an FAQ that imagines what a digital public infrastructure built with taxpayer dollars could mean in face of the dominating social platforms.
With individual discussions of their own, Clay Carey, Christopher Martin and Ethan Zuckerman participated in Q&As on CJR’s Gallery, JR elaborating on their CJL contributions.
December
In the November/December issue of The Washington Monthly, Steven Waldman, Phillip Longman and Nikki Usher published articles as part of the magazine’s package of works that explores how to rescue and revitalize journalism.
OMI analyst Daniel Hanley published an op-ed with The Washington Monthly that illuminates the nuances of the Federal Trade Commission’s lawsuit against Facebook and considers how the case could have been stronger.
Intern Claire O’Brien published a blogpost on Medium that analyzes Carey and Martin’s explorations of news deserts, offering insights on the opportunities and challenges of newsrooms seeking long-term financial sustainability in Iowa and Appalachia.
Director Jody Brannon shared her 2021 prediction with Nieman Lab where she foresees another tough year for journalism as subject experts flock to Substack and newsrooms navigate the economic strain wrought by the pandemic
Contributor Rachel Cohen published an article in The New Republic in which she charges that billionaires and pension funds were never enough to save the local news industry, asserting that we must instead treat journalism as a public good and provide local media groups with public subsidy.
