WASHINGTON — Sen. Amy Klobuchar on Thursday plugged her bill in Congress aimed at helping local media get more compensation from the likes of Facebook and Google by collaborating under an exemption from antitrust regulation — fittingly at the Business of TV News event here.

The Minnesota Democrat, who chairs the Judiciary Subcommittee on Competition Policy, Antitrust, and Consumer Rights, co-sponsored (with Republican Sen. John Kennedy of Louisiana) the Journalism, Competition and Preservation Act. That bill, which she said cleared the Judiciary Committee by a 14-7 bipartisan vote, helps address the challenges faced by news organizations that have seen revenue decline while Big Tech thrives.

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“If the world was perfect, we wouldn't be here talking about this at all, because the antitrust laws would've been already enforced against these platforms,” Klobuchar said in a keynote opening the conference. “But because we’re not in a perfect world, as has happened in the past with farm co-ops and the like, you get exemptions from the antitrust law to be able to actually take on what is a monopoly and even the playing field. And so that's what this [bill] does. It allows for the news organizations to band together to negotiate for better rates.”

Klobuchar spoke about her father, Jim Klobuchar, who was for decades a reporter and columnist for the Minneapolis Star-Tribune. “He interviewed everyone from Mike Ditka to Ronald Reagan to Ginger Rogers,” she said. 

“He once wrote a book called The Heroes Among Us about ordinary people doing extraordinary things. And he would capture that in everything he did,” Klobuchar said. “And that's what journalists do. They find the thread that brings people together from different walks of life. They open our eyes to the bad and the good. And we need that more than ever. Right now, we know that these outlets are struggling, and I don't think it's because of a lack of talent or passion for the work.”

The senator noted that local newspapers have closed all across the country — “eight more in the last month,” she said. “And that's where you see decaying democracy. That's where you see that no one really is covering what the city council is doing or why a business closed. … And that scares me for the band that binds us as communities. It also scares me for our democracy.” 

TV news has not been immune from economic pressures. From 2000 to 2018, ad revenue for local TV stations declined by over 40% in real terms, Klobuchar said. “Meanwhile, two companies, Facebook and Google, worth over $3 trillion combined, became advertising titans.” Google reported more than $61 billion in quarterly advertising revenue, up 13% from the same period the prior year, she said. 

“And we all know this is how people are getting their news, but how are they doing it while they're sucking up ad dollars, while taking actual news stories from credible reporters and feeding them to their users and refusing to offer fair compensation?“ Klobuchar asked. “And as new digital technologies allow consumers to access even more news content on connected devices like smart TVs and smart speakers, the problem will only get worse. While the rise of digital platforms has sometimes been a larger audience, we know that for certain news outlets that hasn't translated to increased revenue.”

In Australia and Canada, government efforts have helped local media get more compensation from Big Tech, she said. “We’re hopeful we are going to find a way to forward this bill,” she said, in spite of lobbying against it and the overall difficulties of getting laws passed these days.

There is movement in the Senate on a bill that would allow online news content providers — including broadcast and print news websites — to bargain collectively for payment from Big Tech platforms. And that has prompted computer companies to continue to fight back, labeling the potential bargainers as cartels out to push unwanted speech with the aid of an interventionist government.

The Senate Judiciary Committee Thursday (June 15) will mark up, and potentially pass out of committee, the Journalism Competition and Preservation Act (JCPA). That vote drew a letter of protest from the Computer & Communications Industry Association (CCIA).

“The JCPA mandates that private companies must carry speech in direct violation of the First Amendment,” CCIA president Matt Schruers said. “This bill will also hinder the fight against misinformation by forcing digital services to publish and pay producers of dangerous content. Congress should not be interfering in the marketplace of ideas by taxing links and creating cartels.”

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The bill would give “news content creators” — print, broadcast or digital — an antitrust safe harbor to negotiate collectively with digital platforms like Facebook and Google for carriage of their original content.

Specifically, the bill would grant publishers immunity from federal and state antitrust laws for several years while they bargain collectively with digital platforms.

News content creators are defined as ones with 1) a dedicated professional editorial staff that creates and distributes original news and related content concerning local, national, or international matters of public interest on at least a weekly basis; 2) are marketed via subscriptions, advertising or sponsorship. They include operations that provide original news and related content, at least 25% of which is current news and related content, or broadcast original news and related content per a Federal Communications Commission license.

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The coordination among bidders has to be “directly related to and reasonably necessary for negotiations with an online content distributor” and [cannot] involve any person that is not a news content creator or online content distributor.

The National Association of Broadcasters has said the bill is necessary to stem a drain of billions of dollars in potential revenues to Big Tech. It says local broadcasters “lose almost an estimated $2 billion annually by providing their content to these platforms,” adding: “Because of the size and power of Big Tech, their policies are almost always ‘take-it-or-leave-it.’ There is little power to negotiate because broadcasters would lose access to hundreds of millions of consumers if they declined to publish their content on these platforms.” 

Senate Judiciary Committee chairman Charles Grassley (R-Iowa) has signaled he plans to hold a confirmation hearing before Inauguration Day on the nomination of Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.) as U.S. Attorney General atop the Justice Department, which routinely vets media mergers for antitrust issues.

Grassley on Tuesday (Nov. 29) met with Sessions, a senior Judiciary Committee member, and said that while he had not yet set a firm date date, the hearing would be before the President-elect is sworn in Jan. 20.

"“I was glad to have Sen. Sessions in my office today," Grassley said. "Members of the Judiciary Committee know him to be an honorable man, and a person of integrity.  He knows the Justice Department well, and cares deeply about the even-handed application of the law."

Given that some members of the Judiciary Committee have served with Sessions for a couple of decades, the committee won't have a big learning curve reviewing his nomination.

Republican FCC commissioner Ajit Pai, a leading contender for interim FCC chair and perhaps permanent chair, worked with Sessions on the Senate Judiciary Committee and has called him "a good man and a superb senator: honorable, thoughtful, devoted to the Constitution, and deeply committed to equal justice and the rule of law."

The Progressive Change Campaign Committee was not so happy with the Sessions pick, saying he would be a boon to big business and likening him to "the proverbial fox guarding the henhouse."

"Senator Sessions will receive the fair and thorough vetting process he deserves," Grassley said.