Last week the California Legislature passed a bill that could be the most important in history for local news outlets.
AB 2222 passed with super majorities in both the California Assembly and California Senate. It now awaits its most crucial step — being signed by Gov. Gavin Newsom.
What the bill does is give tax breaks to local news outlets for five years which are related to the number of journalists they employ. This includes newspapers, local television, radio and online outlets, both for-profit and nonprofit.
We applaud the legislature for taking this major step, hailed by many experts around the country as the biggest piece of legislation ever produced to assist informing the public through local news outlets.
We now urge the governor to sign the bill.
The bill would give struggling news organizations a chance to at least get ahead a little on the balance sheet while also being able to support and encourage its employees to cover the news.
In this day and age, it sometimes seems the news media is under attack from many sides. “Fake news” is spewed by people who have no idea what they are talking about.
For the record, covering the board of supervisors or the high school football team does not constitute fake news. It’s actually real news and creates a permanent record of the history of an area.
Local news outlets, especially newspapers, have struggled in the past decade, mainly because too many people think getting their news from Facebook is sufficient.
It is not.
Facebook is full of rumors and outright lies and you can bet Mark Zuckerberg will never be sending a reporter to the hospital board meeting. He may send an AI bot, but we know where that will get everyone.
Getting a tax break is nothing new in this country. We bailed out the auto industry, we saved the banking industry and big oil and gas continues to get huge tax breaks.
For journalism, being able to give employee raises or maybe even hire a new reporter, this could be a game changer. It is also a fact the money being used to offset this funding is from taxes on CEO salaries that are more than $1 million.
In other words, it is revenue neutral while allowing news outlets to provide vital information to the public on how their tax money is being spent by elected officials. A winwin.
It should be noted that our two representatives, Sen. Marie Alvarado Gil and Rep. David Tangipa, voted against this legislation. We reached out to both urging them to support local journalism, but not only did they ignore our pleas, they voted no.
Why? Maybe you should ask them.
We believe it’s because they sometimes don’t like what they hear and read. Too bad, you signed up to be a public official and the good ones — of all political stripes — support a free press in this country.
In many ways, both of these elected officials are shunning many media businesses in their own districts.
For Tangipa, the entire Fresno area media market will benefit from this legislation. Those markets provide critical information, employment and much more, but apparently that didn’t matter to the assemblyman from Fresno.
Alvarado Gil, too, is shunning many media outlets. In Mariposa County, there are three of us, which also includes the Yosemite Express in Coulterville and the Sierra Sun Times.
Her district also covers a wide swath of eastern California, which includes many newspapers, radio stations and some television outlets.
Again, apparently that’s just not important to Alvarado Gil, who is a lame duck and will not be a member of the California Senate come next January.
One critical issue that gets lost in all of this has nothing to do with journalism. It has to do with the fact small news outlets, like ours and many others, are also small businesses. We are an integral part or the community which provides paychecks to employees, tax revenue and so much more.
So not only does this legislation support journalism, it helps keep small businesses alive. Small businesses, in spite of big tech and large corporations, remain the backbone of American business, including in California.
If you so desire, we would appreciate the public’s support of this legislation by encouraging our governor to put his signature on this bill. If you do not support it, we would be happy to schedule a time with you to explain our position. It would be more than our elected representatives have done.
Having a reliable, accurate and fair local news source is becoming more rare in communities across California and America. This is a chance to preserve what we have and maybe even see it grow.
The First Amendment is the foundational document of our republic.
Let’s preserve it well into the future.
Nicole W. Little, publisher/owner
Greg Little, editor/owner
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