Reps Cicilline, Buck, DeSaulnier, and Sen Klobuchar Introduce Bill to Save Local News

House Antitrust Subcommittee Chairman David Cicilline (D-RI), Ranking Member Ken Buck (R-CO), Rep Mark DeSaulnier (D-CA), and Senate Antitrust Subcommittee Chairwoman Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) announced the introduction of the bipartisan Journalism Competition and Preservation Act that will allow small news outlets to band together to negotiate with large online platforms like Google and Facebook. The Journalism Competition and Preservation Act will establish a temporary, 48-month safe harbor that allows small news publishers to negotiate collectively with online platforms to protect Americans’ access to trustworthy sources of news online. Importantly, the safe harbor is narrowly-tailored to ensure that coordination by news publishers is only in the interest of promoting trust and quality journalism. The bill only allows coordination by news publishers if it (1) directly relates to the quality, accuracy, attribution or branding, or interoperability of news; (2) benefits the entire industry, rather than just a few publishers, and is non-discriminatory to other news publishers; and (3) is directly related to and reasonably necessary for these negotiations, instead of being used for other purposes.

On March 12, the House Antitrust Subcommittee will hold a hearing to examine proposals for Congress to help small publishers compete in the digital marketplace.