Series of bills may benefit Black press

The Black newspaper industry continues to reel from more electronic messaging, ranging from online publications to simple social media blogs. Digital news outlets are commonplace, whereas print news is uncommon. Regardless of the medium used, newspapers are a valuable source of news that is accessible to anyone.
While online sites such as Meta, Google and X (formerly Twitter) have gradually siphoned away stories from small publishers, print news still offers an accurate and up-to-date look at what is going on in various communities and cities. Luckily there are senate and assembly bills in place to protect and preserve the journalism industry.
The first bill is Senate Bill (SB) 1327, designed to help fund journalists. This legislation calls for a Big Tech, “data extraction mitigation fee.” It defines a data extraction transaction as a taxpayer who sells user information or access to users to advertisers. It would require a “tentative credit reservation” from the Franchise Tax Board in the form and manner prescribed by the Franchise Tax Board, and would limit the amount of credit allocated by the Franchise Tax Board per calendar year.”
SB 1327 would set a 7.25-percent tax on gross digital advertising receipts in California. The bill The taxpayer would then engage in a barter and provide full or partial services in order to display advertisements to the user or collect data about the user.
The second bill is Assembly Bill (AB) 886 or the “California Journalism Act Preservation Act.” The bill requires online platforms to pay news outlets when using their content. The outlets are required to distribute at least 70 percent of the payment received to their staff. AB 886 would have tech companies like Google and Meta pay for accessing, indexing and displaying news links that appear on their platforms. Also, the companies would be required to enter into arbitration with California news organizations to agree on a “journalism usage fee” or pay directly into a fund that would be distributed to news outlets, based on how many journalists are employed at a special news outlet.
According to the 2020 U.S. Census, overall newspaper publisher revenue was less than half of what it was in 2002. The estimated weekday circulation of U.S. daily newspapers also dropped by more than half during the same period. In California, an estimated one-third of all newspapers have disappeared since 2005.