California’s Attempt to Make News Aggregators Pay Will Not Save Local Journalism, Says ITIF

WASHINGTON—In response to the California State Assembly’s passage of the California Journalism Preservation Act (CJPA), the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation (ITIF), the leading think tank for science and technology policy, issued the following statement from Senior Policy Analyst Ashley Johnson:

California’s misguided attempt to save local journalism is yet another example of the state taking inspiration from other countries’ mistakes. The CJPA will not save local journalism, but it could end up hurting news publishers’ revenue and Californians’ access to news content.

Multiple European countries, Australia, Canada, and Congress have considered or passed similar legislation. This has often resulted in news aggregators limiting or removing news content to those countries, as Meta may do in California. News publishers would lose an important source of traffic and Californians would lose an easy and convenient way to access news from multiple sources.

Journalism, like many industries, has needed to adapt to rapid technological changes in the past few decades. The decline in local journalism began before companies like Google and Meta created their now-popular news feeds. In fact, publishers benefit from news aggregators that spread their content to a wider audience, leading to more readers and more revenue.