Google's new deal with California lawmakers will pay newsrooms across the state up to $250 million over the next five years, while helping the tech giant avoid an even bigger bill. tech-companies-support”>A pioneering agreement in the countryFunded by taxpayers, Google and potentially other private sources, it allows the search giant to evade a state bill that would require it to pay for linking Californians to news articles.
The money will be split between two initiatives administered by the UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism’s “News Transformation Fund.” ai-00174817″>According Political$180 million is expected to be distributed to California media outlets (excluding broadcasters), while the remaining $70 million will go toward artificial intelligence resources to help “strengthen the workforce.” The initiatives are expected to go live sometime in 2025.
“The agreement not only provides funding to support hundreds of new journalists, but also helps rebuild a strong and vibrant California press corps for years to come, reinforcing the vital role of journalism in our democracy,” California Gov. Gavin Newsom said in a statement. The California News Publishers Association also praised the agreement, calling it “a first step toward what we hope will become a comprehensive program to sustain local news for the long term.”
The deal is the result of a two-year battle between tech giants and the news industry over how to support local journalism amid a shift toward online readers and a decline in advertising. California Journalism Preservation Act (CJPA) was a proposed solution, with A study estimates Meta and Google would be required to pay US publishers up to $13.9 billion annually if the law were passed. Google responded by testing the removal of links to California news websites and said the CJPA “could result in significant changes” to the experience of its products.
The five-year agreement that will now replace it has drawn criticism from lawmakers and journalists. California state Senate leader Mike McGuire raised concerns about funding in a statement to Politicalsaying the deal “does not fully address the inequalities facing the industry,”
“Publishers who claim to represent our industry are entering into an opaque deal involving taxpayer funds, a vague ai acceleration project that could very well destroy journalism jobs, and minimal financial commitments from Google to return the wealth this monopoly has stolen from our newsrooms,” the statement said. The Western Media Guild said in its own statement“No organisation representing journalists and information workers agreed to this undemocratic and secret agreement with one of the companies that is destroying our industry.”