FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
April 12, 2024
Contact: Rebekah Entralgo, rentralgo@cwa-union.org (202) 304-2241
WASHINGTON, D.C. – Following Google’s action to temporarily block California-based news outlets’ content for some state residents in response to the proposed California Journalism Preservation Act, as reported in Politico on Friday April, 2024, Jon Schluess – President of The NewsGuild-CWA, Matt Pearce – President of Media Guild of the West TNG-CWA Local 39213, and Annie Sciacca – President of the Pacific Media Workers Guild TNG-CWA Local 39521 have released the following joint statement:
“California lawmakers and Gov. Gavin Newsom must stand united against Google’s undemocratic threats to censor the work of California’s journalists by shutting off news access in the middle of an election year. Every voter’s access to information counts; California’s journalists are covering an ongoing congressional election in the 16th District, where two candidates received an equal number of votes. This is an extraordinarily inappropriate time for Google to experiment with which voters might or might not see news about elected officials and candidates for office.
Google is not engaging with California lawmakers in good faith regarding Asm. Buffy Wicks’ California Journalism Preservation Act. During a December informational hearing related to that bill, amid discussion about the prospect of Google banning journalism from its services in California, Google news executive Richard Gingras testified to Committee Chair Sen. Tom Umberg that Google had ‘no desire to stop including news in Search.’ Given today’s events, obviously Google’s testimony to our elected leaders was not true.
Google must stop playing games with California’s democracy.”
The Media Guild of the West and Pacific Media Workers Guild support the California Journalism Preservation Act, marking the first time trade unions representing American journalists support a bill that seeks to level the economic playing field between massive tech platforms and news publishers.
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The NewsGuild-CWA is a labor union founded by newspaper journalists in 1933, representing over 27,000 members in newsrooms, online publications, and non-profit organizations across the country, including about a thousand journalists and media workers in California newsrooms.
Media Guild of the West, The NewsGuild-CWA Local 39213, represents journalists and media workers at the Los Angeles Times, Orange County Register, L.A. Daily News, Press-Enterprise and Desert Sun and many other newsrooms.
Pacific Media Workers Guild, The NewsGuild-CWA Local 39213, represents journalists and media workers at the San Francisco Chronicle, Sacramento Bee, East Bay Times, Mercury News, Fresno Bee and many other newsrooms.