California legislation modelled after Canada’s Online News Act has seen Google broker an agreement with newsrooms to provide compensation for news articles that appear on their platforms.
Google will reportedly provide newsrooms across the state with $250 million over the next five years.
That funding will be divided into two parts. The first will see a new non-profit established that distribute $180 million to news outlets from across the state (excluding broadcasters). The remaining $70 million is earmarked for artificial intelligence resources to help “strengthen the workforce.”
Since the deal was announced earlier this week, Politico has reported that one journalist union, Media Guild of the West, blasted the deal as a giveaway to Google that would not alter the company’s vast power over newsrooms.
“This was just a total rout,” Media Guild of the West President Matt Pearce, a former Los Angeles Times reporter, said. “Google used its monopoly power and held the line.”
Brier Dudley, a Seattle Times Free Press editor, was also critical of the compromise. He wrote a column that argued Google “appears to have whittled the policy down and crafting something on its terms, similar to what it did last year in Canada.”
