WASHINGTON – The Senate Judiciary Committee today passed Sens. John Kennedy (R-La.) and Amy Klobuchar’s (D-Minn.) Journalism Competition and Preservation Act (JCPA) with strong bipartisan support. The JCPA would support small, local, independent and conservative news publications that struggle to survive under the weight of Big Tech’s market dominance and censorship efforts.
“Tech Goliaths like Facebook and Google are strangling smaller conservative publications by keeping them from making a profit on online platforms. The manipulation is squashing free speech. This bill bars Big Tech firms from throttling, filtering, suppressing or curating online content while providing local news outlets with a fair playing field to negotiate against these censorship giants,” said Kennedy.
The JCPA removes legal obstacles so that small and mid-sized news organizations can negotiate jointly for compensation from digital platforms, including Facebook and Google, that access their content without allowing them to profit from their journalism. The legislation also prohibits Big Tech from censoring these publishers and allows the news outlets to demand arbitration if they reach an impasse in negotiations with digital platforms.
This bill would cover Louisiana’s major newspapers and many conservative outlets, giving them a level playing field in negotiations with Big Tech platforms that often prevent them from making a profit from their work online or sharing their work with broader audiences. It would not cover large legacy media companies like the Washington Post or New York Times.
News outlets in support of the JCPA include The Washington Examiner, National Review, Newsmax, Townhall Media, The Washington Times and others.
