Give local media the tools needed to level the playing field with tech giants

By Editorial Board

What do you call it when someone takes something you made without your permission and then makes a pile of money off of it, without sharing any of that money with you?

Most of us would call that theft and if we were polite, would call the people doing it crooks, among other, more colorful, terms. It would seem reasonable you should be entitled to share in the revenue that came from someone else scooping up your work and repackaging it.

That is exactly what is happening on the national level, as tech giants, such as Google, Facebook and others, skim news media sites for content, which they then repackage and sell advertising around, to deliver to consumers.

There is a lot of time, effort and resources, that go into producing a news or sports story.

Perhaps you have recently read over the articles about your school’s baseball or softball teams’ efforts in the playoffs, or read about the competitors at State track. This local newspaper paid staff members wages to go to the game and to collect the information, take the pictures and write up the stories.

This newspaper paid for the equipment used to produce the stories from the computers and software, to the wages of proofreaders and page designers. It paid for the article and the rest of the paper to be printed, and also paid the costs of labeling and mailing the papers. This newspaper also pays for maintaining and updating the newspaper’s website, to give people additional means of accessing it.

It is unfair and just plain wrong that news aggregator sites should be able to swoop in, snatch stories and then make bank on selling advertising to national companies, based on people whose eyeballs this newspaper’s content brings to them.

It is wrong, that under current rules, newspapers are forced to fight these tech giants on an individual basis, in efforts that are about as effective as ants trying to battle elephants. It is wrong that these companies are allowed to feed like parasites off the hard work of reporters, photographers and other working members of the media, and in the process, take the lion’s share of online revenues.

It doesn’t have to be this way. A bipartisan group of members of congress, led by Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) and John Kennedy (R -La.), are working to address this problem with the Journalism Competition and Preservation Act (S. 1094). The bill would authorize local newspapers to work together to negotiate for payments from social media platforms and allow the money made by these tech giants, to be fairly shared with the people actually doing the work and investing in local community journalism.

There is power in numbers. Small newspapers and groups simply do not have the clout to negotiate on a level playing field, with the vertically integrated tech giants. Local newspapers need to be able to work together, to help ensure that local newsrooms can remain staffed and strong in the face of unfair business practices of mega-corporations.

The bill currently does not have any Wisconsin co-sponsors. Call on Congressman Tom Tiffany, and Sens. Tammy Baldwin and Ron Johnson to join in supporting this bill, to level the playing field, so that newspapers, such as this one, aren’t left footing the bill for mega companies to add to their billions in profits..

Members of the Courier Sentinel editorial board include publisher Carol O’Leary, general manager Kris O’Leary and Star News editor Brian Wilson.