National disinformation outlets win big while local news gets almost nothing
On Tuesday, Chamber of Progress released a new study examining who would benefit under the proposed California Journalism Preservation Act (CJPA), a bill that would require online platforms to pay media outlets when hosting a news link to their content.
The study, which shows that disinformation outlets including Fox News and the New York Post would profit the most from the CJPA, comes as the California Assembly Judiciary Committee holds a hearing and vote on the legislation.
“This bill’s biggest winners aren’t California news outlets, they’re national media outlets known for spreading disinformation,” said Chamber of Progress CEO Adam Kovacevich. “By requiring online platforms to pay media outlets that produce viral articles, the CJPA actually makes the problem worse by incentivizing clickbait and misinformation.”
The analysis, conducted by Chamber of Progress Senior Economist Kaitlyn Harger, not only finds national outlets would profit the most from the CJPA, but that outlets serving minority communities, including Black- and Latino-owned outlets, would receive a small fraction of the CJPA’s funding stream. Altogether, the cumulative link traffic generated by all Black newspapers in California accounts for less than half a percent of similar link traffic generated by Fox News, suggesting that Black-owned outlets would receive a similarly fractional share of revenue under the CJPA.
Likewise, the study finds that link traffic to local papers in California’s news deserts accounts for less than one percent of similar traffic to Fox News content. Read the full analysis here.
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Chamber of Progress (progresschamber.org) is a center-left tech industry policy coalition promoting technology’s progressive future. We work to ensure that all Americans benefit from technological leaps, and that the tech industry operates responsibly and fairly.
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