California’s Deal for News
Forging a new way to support journalism
Published in
7 min readAug 22, 2024
A deal has just been struck in California by Assembly member Buffy Wicks that averts what could have been, in my opinion, disastrous legislation written by lobbyists to benefit primarily incumbent, investor- and hedge-fund-controlled news media in and out of the state.
I am gratified that the outline of the announcement approaches what I had proposed in my research on the legislation, commissioned by the California Chamber of Commerce, and in testimony I gave to a California Senate committee.
The structure of the deal: a private/public fund to support news, overseen by an independent board and administered by a university. I’ve gotten a few more details of the plan and this could well change, but as I understand it, it provides for:
- A matching fund for news with $15 million from Google and $15 million in public money in the first year. Years two to five are to be determined but I understand there are floors and ceilings set.
- The fund is likely to be based on employment (full-time and freelance) in news organizations, which would disappoint me insofar as some money would end up with investor- and hedge-fund-owned newspapers that are cutting more than investing in news. Money being fungible, that money will likely go to their P&Ls…
