Editorial: Journalism Competition and Preservation Act serves communities by keeping news accessible

Local news is necessary news.

All news serves a purpose. National news helps us identify what is happening in our country and how it affects us and how we affect it. State news narrows that focus to the decisions being made in our capital and by our lawmakers and in the other communities inside the borders. Weather news tells us when a storm is coming, and entertainment news tells us about the movies and music that will distract us from what we don’t want to hear.

The news can be broken into chunks like science or business or education or health. All of them are important. All of them add to our lives and can make us better citizens.

But local news is the news we need. Every day.

Local news tells us about the money we will spend at the pump or when we pay our taxes. It helps us make decisions about our health or our kids’ education. Local news can keep us safe in bad weather or when a fire has broken out or, hey, even when a bridge falls down and re-routes your commute.

Local news helps you keep your leaders accountable for the decisions they make on your behalf and helps you make accountable decisions when you go to the ballot box.

On Wednesday, Trib Total Media President and CEO Jennifer Bertetto testified before the U.S. Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Competition Policy, Antitrust and Consumer Rights. She testified about the challenges of providing that local news when social media and technology companies are dominating the ways in which people consume information.

“Tech platforms have became gatekeepers, controlling access to news — my company’s original content — on their sites. Sadly, most Americans get their news from these platforms, who are raking in record profits by simply curating ‘content,’ a word that has subtly devalued the painstaking work of real reporting by journalists,” she said.

The solution — a necessary one in a landscape where so many newspapers have stopped publishing and so many communities have no access to local news — is a level playing field. The Journalism Competition and Preservation Act could provide that, allowing news publishers a window to negotiate with platforms for compensation.

This benefits readers by keeping local news — the news sources that polls show people trust the most — open and functioning in communities.

“The bill does not prescribe the outcome, but it allows us the opportunity to seek fair compensation, requiring the parties to negotiate in good faith,” Bertetto said.