Later this month, I’m heading up to Washington, D. C. to lobby Congress to help save local journalism in our country.
Over the last 20 years, we’ve lost two-thirds of our professional journalists. A third of all newspapers have shut down. Instead, people get their news from Tik-Tok, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube and bloggers. The world has changed.
Newspaper revenues are a fraction of what they once were. All that ad revenue has gone to Google and the other Internet mega platforms.
It’s not that we don’t have the eyeballs. If you include our websites, we have more readers than ever before. Our problem is we don’t have the scale to run a massive spying apparatus like Google, Apple and Facebook.
They track your every move, your every keystroke. They eavesdrop through your cell phone. They use this information to target ads. It’s an unfair advantage.
In Europe, laws are being enacted to prevent this snooping. But not in the United States. Why? Because the mega platforms are the richest, most powerful companies in the history of the world. They can buy Congress. It’s disgusting and scary.
Back in the old days, Congress passed laws to prevent your phone from being tapped. It’s still a felony to tap a phone line. Yet somehow the world has turned upside down and the mega platforms can tap your phone and nobody does anything about it. Go figure.
Not only that, Congress gave legal immunity to Internet platforms. It’s called Section 230 of the Communications Act. The Northside Sun can get sued for every single word we print. Yet Google and Facebook can publish whatever they want without the fear of libel lawsuits. It’s unfair and wrong.
If Congress would repeal Section 230, local journalism would not need subsidies.
Google and Facebook produce no content of their own. They just post other people’s content, including the Northside Sun’s content. Yet we don’t get one penny in reimbursement thanks to our screwed up copyright laws.
There is legislation to change that and force the mega platforms into federally supervised arbitration to determine a fair amount to compensate local newspapers, radio and television stations for using our content. Canada just passed such a law.
This law came close to passing in the U. S. until Facebook and Google flexed their lobbying might. It was a wonder to behold. Scary too. But we’re not giving up.
There’s another law I will be lobbying for. It gives tax credits to help pay journalists. This almost became law but for Joe Manchin killing Build Back Better.
Thanks to some very honorable people in Congress, both bills are still alive and gaining momentum. It’s exciting to see.
It’s just crazy that an affluent country like the United States is losing its journalists.
I’m fine with social media and giving every citizen a forum to post their opinions. But somebody has to actually go to the city council meetings in our small towns, write a real news story, fact check it, verify it, get both sides of the stories and have a real news story written by a real journalist. Our nation depends on it.
I know everybody thinks journalists are biased. We are all biased. But it’s wrong to let perfection be the enemy of the good. We need professionally trained journalists, with journalism degrees from our schools and universities, out covering the board of supervisors and the city councils and the schools and our police. A random comment or opinion on your Facebook page is not equivalent to this.
Real journalism takes skill, training and work. It doesn’t come free. It’s expensive.
Some people argue against journalism tax credits saying the government will use it to manipulate the press. I doubt it. Newspapers have received subsidized postal rates for over a century and nobody from the post office has ever tried to push me around.
My wife Ginny says I’m the last man standing and it feels like it. Emmerich Newspapers employs more journalists and produces more local stories than any news organization in the state — by far — about a thousand articles a week. But we are barely hanging on.
Will my company benefit from these laws passing? For sure, and it will mean our survival, our ability to raise journalists’ salaries, to hire more reporters and improve our newspapers and websites.
We’re spending $80 billion to bring high speed Internet access to rural America. We can spend an additional $1.8 billion to make sure these high speed lines can actually deliver real news.
Our locally owned shops and businesses are always exhorting us to support local. “Keep the money circulating in our own economy.” And they are right. Yet these same local businesses are advertising on Facebook, Google and the monopolistic platforms. Think about that. Support local? Yes indeed. And advertise locally in a medium that actually reports local news and tries to better its community.
My calling is local news. I live it. I breathe it. I could have sold out years ago and done nothing but enjoy the money. I didn’t. I couldn’t. Not going to do it now. I care about Mississippi and I know how important real journalism is to our state.
Sure, I’ll personally benefit in the short run. But it will also spur competition. The real beneficiaries will be journalists and the people of Mississippi.
People have little idea how few people in Mississippi actually produce news. The illusion is caused by how easily what news there is gets transmitted rapidly. The Clarion-Ledger used to have 150 journalists. Now they have a half dozen. Mississippi Today and Magnolia Tribune, both funded by wealthy men who see the need for real journalism, have picked up some of the slack statewide. Emmerich News, our booming statewide platform is the biggest distributor of their content.
But there are no similar wealthy subsidizers of local news (other than my company operating at a loss). We have started asking readers for contributions, and some have, but it’s not nearly enough.
Every morning one of my prayers is this: “Dear Lord, atheistic, monopolistic Big Tech is taking over the country. Though old, I’m suiting up every morning and walking to the battlefield. But there’s no way I can do it without your power. If it be your will, help me win this battle.”
But there are no similar wealthy subsidizers of local news (other than my company operating at a loss) .We have started asking readers for contributions, and some have, but it’s not nearly enough.
Every morning one of my prayers is this: “Dear Lord, atheistic, monopolistic Big Tech is taking over the country. Though old, I’m suiting up every morning and walking to the battlefield. But there’s no way I can do it without your power. If it be your will, help me win this battle.”
