Google, lawmakers reach deal to support California newsrooms

Google and California lawmakers have reached an agreement to provide state newsrooms with millions of dollars in funding over the next five years, putting an end to a battle between the Golden State and the tech giant about compensating the news industry. 

The initiative will bring in nearly $250 million in funding, $180 million of which will go toward California newsrooms and $62.5 million of which will go toward a new artificial intelligence (AI) program, according to details provided by California Assemblymember Buffy Wicks’s (D) office. 

“This agreement represents a major breakthrough in ensuring the survival of newsrooms and bolstering local journalism across California — leveraging substantial tech industry resources without imposing new taxes on Californians,” California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) said in a statement. 

The state will contribute $30 million to a newly created journalism fund in its first year and $10 million for each of the next four years, while Google will provide $15 million in the first year and $10 million in each of the following years. 

The tech giant will give another $10 million a year to its existing journalism programs, like Google Showcase and Google News Initiative, and up to $5 million a year toward AI for journalism. ChatGPT maker OpenAI is contributing its technology. 

The agreement also creates a National AI Accelerator, to which Google will contribute $10 million a year. It will provide another $2.5 million to fund AI research. 

“California lawmakers have worked with the tech and news sectors to develop a collaborative framework to accelerate AI innovation and support local and national businesses and non-profit organizations,” Kent Walker, president of global affairs and chief legal officer for Google’s parent company Alphabet, said in a statement. 

“This public-private partnership builds on our long history of working with journalism and the local news ecosystem in our home state, while developing a national center of excellence on AI policy,” he continued. 

The agreement replaces a controversial state bill that would have required major tech companies to pay news providers for their content. However, it is already drawing scrutiny from the industry. 

“After two years of advocacy for strong antimonopoly action to start turning around the decline of local newsrooms, we are left almost without words,” Media Guild of the West said in a statement. 

“The publishers who claim to represent our industry are celebrating an opaque deal involving taxpayer funds, a vague AI accelerator 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,” it continued.

“Not a single organization representing journalists and news workers agreed to this undemocratic and secretive deal with one of the businesses destroying our industry,” it added.