The California Senate Judiciary Committee passed the California Journalism Preservation Act (AB 886) on Tuesday with a vote of 9-2 during a scheduled hearing. The bill, introduced by Assembly Member Buffy Wicks, now advances to the Appropriations committee before a final vote on the California Senate floor.
The NewsGuild-CWA, Media Guild of the West (TNG-CWA Local 39213) and Pacific Media Workers Guild (TNG-CWA Local 39521) are supporters of the California Journalism Preservation Act, having worked alongside Assembly Member Buffy Wick’s team to make several improvement to the bill that would benefit union journalism jobs across the state. The legislation also has the support of NABET-CWA, SAG-AFTRA, the California News Publishers Association and many individual publishers.
Matt Pearce, Media Guild of the West president, testified during the hearing in support of the bill.
“Whenever one of you takes an ugly vote, AI is never going to chase you down that hallway like Ashley Zavala,” Pearce said at the hearing. “That’s because there’s no such thing as local journalism without local journalists.”
The CJPA would create a journalism usage fee from digital advertising giants like Google/Alphabet and Meta/Facebook to ensure news outlets can pay fair, livable wages to journalists in California. The bill mandates that 70% of the funds from the fees would be reinvested into preserving journalism jobs in the state. The bill also includes language that requires publishers to share how much money they receive and how they’re spending that money.
“America’s journalists support the CJPA because it will increase and support journalism jobs across California,” said NewsGuild-CWA President Jon Schleuss. “We’ve lost too many journalists in the last decade and that’s why thousands have unionized to fight for their jobs so that every community has the news coverage they deserve.”