WASHINGTON — Sen. Amy Klobuchar on Thursday plugged her bill in Congress aimed at helping local media get more compensation from the likes of Facebook and Google by collaborating under an exemption from antitrust regulation — fittingly at the Business of TV News event here.
The Minnesota Democrat, who chairs the Judiciary Subcommittee on Competition Policy, Antitrust, and Consumer Rights, co-sponsored (with Republican Sen. John Kennedy of Louisiana) the Journalism, Competition and Preservation Act. That bill, which she said cleared the Judiciary Committee by a 14-7 bipartisan vote, helps address the challenges faced by news organizations that have seen revenue decline while Big Tech thrives.
Read More: Coverage From the Business of TV News Event
“If the world was perfect, we wouldn't be here talking about this at all, because the antitrust laws would've been already enforced against these platforms,” Klobuchar said in a keynote opening the conference. “But because we’re not in a perfect world, as has happened in the past with farm co-ops and the like, you get exemptions from the antitrust law to be able to actually take on what is a monopoly and even the playing field. And so that's what this [bill] does. It allows for the news organizations to band together to negotiate for better rates.”
Klobuchar spoke about her father, Jim Klobuchar, who was for decades a reporter and columnist for the Minneapolis Star-Tribune. “He interviewed everyone from Mike Ditka to Ronald Reagan to Ginger Rogers,” she said.
“He once wrote a book called The Heroes Among Us about ordinary people doing extraordinary things. And he would capture that in everything he did,” Klobuchar said. “And that's what journalists do. They find the thread that brings people together from different walks of life. They open our eyes to the bad and the good. And we need that more than ever. Right now, we know that these outlets are struggling, and I don't think it's because of a lack of talent or passion for the work.”
The senator noted that local newspapers have closed all across the country — “eight more in the last month,” she said. “And that's where you see decaying democracy. That's where you see that no one really is covering what the city council is doing or why a business closed. … And that scares me for the band that binds us as communities. It also scares me for our democracy.”
TV news has not been immune from economic pressures. From 2000 to 2018, ad revenue for local TV stations declined by over 40% in real terms, Klobuchar said. “Meanwhile, two companies, Facebook and Google, worth over $3 trillion combined, became advertising titans.” Google reported more than $61 billion in quarterly advertising revenue, up 13% from the same period the prior year, she said.
“And we all know this is how people are getting their news, but how are they doing it while they're sucking up ad dollars, while taking actual news stories from credible reporters and feeding them to their users and refusing to offer fair compensation?“ Klobuchar asked. “And as new digital technologies allow consumers to access even more news content on connected devices like smart TVs and smart speakers, the problem will only get worse. While the rise of digital platforms has sometimes been a larger audience, we know that for certain news outlets that hasn't translated to increased revenue.”
In Australia and Canada, government efforts have helped local media get more compensation from Big Tech, she said. “We’re hopeful we are going to find a way to forward this bill,” she said, in spite of lobbying against it and the overall difficulties of getting laws passed these days.
