Gov. Gavin Newsom’s price range proposal contains no cash for a fund shaped final 12 months to spice up the state’s native newsrooms, casting doubt on whether or not a heralded effort to assist California journalists will quantity to something and the way severe Newsom is about supporting the struggling business.
It’s a big walkback from an August 2024 deal between state leaders and Google by which they agreed to collectively spend $175 million over 5 years to fund native journalism.
The deal, which Newsom hailed as a “main breakthrough in guaranteeing the survival of newsrooms” on the time, was reached after Google spent a document sum — $11 million — lobbying state lawmakers efficiently to drop two proposals that might have pressured Google to pay newsrooms for utilizing their content material. Below the settlement, the state would pay $70 million and Google $55 million into the newly established California Civic Media Fund for native information retailers. Google would additionally proceed issuing its annual $10-million newsroom grants.
However in Could 2025, citing price range restraints, Newsom slashed the state’s first-year dedication to only $10 million for fiscal 12 months 2025-26, with no future state funding assured. Google subsequently stated it could match the state’s $10-million funding however no extra.
Google was clear within the deal that “its contributions have been contingent” on state funding, much like its journalism funding deal in Canada, stated Erin Ivie, spokesperson for Assemblymember Buffy Wicks, an Oakland Democrat who brokered the deal in 2024.
A 2019 examine by the commerce group Information Media Alliance estimated that Google made $4.7 billion from information websites in 2018. Google’s father or mother firm, Alphabet, remodeled $100 billion within the third quarter of 2025 alone — its “first ever $100-billion quarter,” stated Alphabet and Google CEO Sundar Pichai. By Wednesday, Alphabet’s market cap was over $4 trillion.
Not one of the $20 million pledged has reached native information retailers, drawing disappointment from journalism advocates. The Governor’s Workplace of Enterprise and Financial Growth, which administers the funds, has obtained the cash and expects to distribute it this 12 months, stated company spokesperson Willie Rudman.
“At this level proper now, no person needs to be leaping up and down and getting excited,” California Information Publishers Assn. President Chuck Champion stated.
Newsom’s lack of proposed funding for future years angered Champion, who stated the governor didn’t hold his promise.
“He’s extra within the billionaires and his pals than he’s keen on journalists who’re out on the road,” Champion stated. “He talks about democracy, he talks about how critically vital it’s, after which he permits our journalists to starve on the vine.”
The shortage of future dedication from the state additionally raises the query whether or not Google will deposit something into the fund subsequent 12 months. Google Information Initiative didn’t instantly reply to a CalMatters inquiry for remark.
Newsom’s workplace didn’t reply to questions on his determination to skip the funding this 12 months, directing CalMatters to the state Division of Finance and Rudman.
Lawmaker guarantees to combat for extra funding
“There’s no going again on the deal,” Division of Finance Director Joe Stephenshaw pressured to reporters throughout a price range briefing final week, saying that the state has already contributed the $10 million promised final 12 months.
Wicks stated price range restraints pressured Newsom’s hand final 12 months.
“What you noticed final 12 months was the price range being what it was,” she stated. “Packages throughout the board obtained lower and sliced, both obtained utterly zeroed out or considerably lowered, and that is no completely different.”
However she stated she’s going to combat for extra funding.
“I’ve been working on the belief that [the state] will honor the multiyear dedication,” Wicks stated.
However even the complete quantity of the Google deal is probably not sufficient to “arrest the collapse of unbiased neighborhood information in California,” stated former state Sen. Steve Glazer, an Orinda Democrat who authored a invoice that might have provided tax credit to employers of journalists by charging a price to platforms like Google.
“Leaders can’t simply speak about defending our democracy,” he stated. “They should act to direct the sources to assist unbiased information reporting that gives the oversight and accountability of our democratic establishments.”
The journalism business nationwide has been diminishing. Between 2005 and 2024, greater than 3,200 newspapers shut their doorways, in response to a 2024 report by the Native Information Initiative at Northwestern College.
As of that 12 months, California had 1.5 information retailers for each 100,000 residents, rating forty fifth amongst all 50 states and Washington, D.C. Between 2013 and 2024, the variety of newspaper journalists in California dropped by greater than half.
Congress final 12 months voted to strip public broadcast stations nationwide of federal funding, placing dozens of stations throughout California in peril. The Company for Public Broadcasting, a nationwide nonprofit that has funded public media since 1967, introduced its dissolution because of the funding cuts final week.
California’s public broadcasters stand to lose as a lot as $30 million a 12 months because of the federal cuts, stated Assemblymember Chris Ward, a San Diego Democrat, in a letter final month to legislative price range leaders requesting state funding for public media.
Ward, together with 11 different Democratic assemblymembers, is asking for $70 million subsequent 12 months for public broadcast stations.
“California is one in all solely 16 states that don’t present funding for public media,” he stated within the letter. “California’s 33 non-profit public media organizations present protection to over 90% of the state, and serve various communities in each [the] largest metropolitan areas and rural communities — companies that not solely embrace arts, tradition, and neighborhood engagement, however emergency alerts and schooling.”
The California Information Publishers Assn., which the Los Angeles Occasions belongs to, has advocated for Google assist for the information media.
