State Dems push government-subsidized journalism

Three legislative Democrats have introduced a suite of bills they say will help revive an ailing local newspaper industry, including a tax credit for subscribers and the creation of a newspaper partnership with the UW System.

The bills, authored by Rep. Jimmy Anderson (D-Fitchburg), Rep. Jodi Emerson (D-Eau Claire), and Sen. Mark Spreitzer (D-Beloit), are supported by the Wisconsin Newspaper Association (WNA) and by Free Press, an advocacy group with funding ties to the left-wing Omidyar Network and which has crusaded against alleged disinformation on the internet.

The lawmakers say the bills would improve and enhance local journalism in the state. One bill would create a state tax credit for local newspaper subscriptions, another would create a Civic Information Consortium Board that would provide grants to support local journalism and media projects around the state, and a third would create a journalism fellowship program within the UW System for beginning journalists.

Spreitzer said local news organizations had suffered deep cuts over the past 20 years.

“A quarter of American newspapers have shuttered and the number of newsroom staff has declined, while one in every five Americans are now stranded in local news deserts,” Spreitzer said. “As a state senator, I know first-hand how important local journalism is to the foundation of our democracy — keeping Wisconsinites informed about their government and local community, providing opportunities for discussion on important civic issues, and helping to cultivate an informed and engaged electorate.”

Spreitzer said every Wisconsinite deserves access to high-quality and affordable local journalism, and the senator further said that local newspapers are the lifeblood of Wisconsin communities.

The lawmakers said more and more people are being fed a nationalized and TV-saturated news diet that is fueling political polarization, undermining trust in institutions, and depressing voter participation.

“This local journalism package represents an exciting opportunity to reimagine what we can do with public support for local news,” the lawmakers said in a statement. “These three bills are designed to leverage strategic investments in our journalism workforce, news consumers, and local media projects. Together, they will revitalize democracy, hold elected officials accountable to their constituents, and bolster pride and belonging in every corner of Wisconsin.” 

Under the proposals, which as of press time had yet to be formally introduced, a Journalism Fellowship Program would be created within the UW System. A selection committee composed of UW journalism professors and “industry experts” would choose 25 fellows and match them to participating newsrooms. 

Those 25 students would get experience in the newsroom and a kickstart in their careers with a $40,000 salary stipend, the lawmakers said.

The Democrats said the tax credit would invest in democratic education and community engagement by increasing Wisconsinites’ access to local journalism. It would create a local newspaper subscription tax credit equal to 50 percent of subscription costs and capped at $250 per person, per year.

Under the third bill, a civic information consortium would be established in partnership with the UW System. If passed, it would distribute grants to local news and media projects with the purpose of providing hyperlocal content to what the lawmakers say are underserved communities.

According to Free Press Action, which supports the bills, this consortium would be governed by a board to oversee a $20-million grant program. It says the legislation is modeled after New Jersey’s Civic Information Consortium, which Free Press Action helped establish in 2018.

The Wisconsin Newspaper Association (WNA) voted in November to support the legislative package, though Beth Bennett, the WNA executive director, says the WNA was not involved in the drafting of the bill.

In addition to the subscriber incentive tax credit, Bennett says the information consortium would provide funding for areas of the state that need support for local reporting. 

“All of the bills are designated for newspapers that meet the Chapter 985 qualification to be a legal newspaper in Wisconsin,” Bennett said. “These newspapers are the members of the Wisconsin Newspaper Association — the legal newspapers of the state.”

Bennett also said there are firewalls in the bills that prohibit the donor from interfering with the editorial product.

“Overall, this effort is a positive one for newspapers and there are many efforts like this one being explored in other states,” she said.

Left-wing advocacy

Alex Frandsen, Free Press Action’s journalism program manager, spoke alongside Anderson at a news conference last week extolling the virtues of the legislation.

“Free Press Action is pleased to see state lawmakers tackle the crisis in journalism with innovative legislation that strikes at the root of the problem,” Frandsen said. “While Rep. Anderson’s bills would benefit communities across the state, they would also reverberate far beyond Wisconsin. By passing these bills, Wisconsin can become a leader in reimagining how public policies can address news deserts, combat misinformation, and foster more informed local communities.”

With an average of two local newspapers across the country shutting down every week, the destruction of local news is real and ongoing, Frandsen said. 

“But this decline impacts far more people than the thousands of journalists who have been laid off in recent months,” he said. “The less access people have to state and local information, the less they know about civic affairs, and the more their communities become disconnected and disempowered. Local news and information are pillars of our democracy, and cornerstones of our ability to effect change.”

Frandsen said the local newspaper crisis has made it clear that the commercial marketplace can no longer support local news production on its own. 

“We desperately need public policies that can chart a new path forward, including those that provide local, state and federal funding for news outlets,” he said. “Free Press Action applauds Wisconsin lawmakers’ bold action, which seeks to holistically support the state’s media system — from legacy outlets to startups — with community needs at the forefront. We urge the state legislature to unite behind these measures as quickly as possible — for the sake of Wisconsin and for the sake of our democracy.”

Free Press Action is part of a “media democracy” movement that supports net neutrality. Its board consists of major Democrats and leftists, including a former staff member for Vermont socialist U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders and a former FTC commissioner appointed by President Joe Biden.

Free Press Action has also been vocal in its opposition to X, formerly known as Twitter, since Elon Musk bought the social media platform.

“Since Elon Musk took over Twitter last October, the platform has become a toxic cesspool of hate and disinformation,” the group states. “Musk has instituted mass layoffs, gutted content-moderation rules and reinstated thousands of previously banned accounts.”

Amid such turmoil, Free Press says on its website that it helped organize a “stop-disinformation campaign” against Twitter and has scored important victories.

“We’ve succeeded in pushing more than half of the platform’s top-1,000 advertisers to stop spending on the platform — a crucial win given that advertising once accounted for 90 percent of Twitter’s revenues,” the group stated. “The longer-term impacts of our campaign are still being felt at the company: The New York Times reported in June that U.S. advertising revenue at Twitter was down 59 percent from the year before. Musk blamed the ‘nonprofits who influence the advertisers.’” 

The group is deeply involved in DEI and disinformation initiatives, reporting that its co-CEO, Craig Aaron, attended a White House ceremony where Biden and vice-president Kamala Harris announced $42 billion in funding for a Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment program.

“Free Press Action teamed up with allies in the Disinfo Defense League — a network fighting disinformation targeting communities of color — to host a Capitol Hill briefing,” the group reported. “The event focused on the harms that privacy violations, digital redlining, hate speech and disinformation pose for people of color and others who experience online discrimination.”

The stakes are high, the group states, quoting its CEO as saying that “malicious online forces are working to ‘undermine democracy, peaceful transitions of power [and] the right to vote.’”

The group has been active on the climate change front, too, working with the Utility Justice Coalition, which it says includes more than 170 social justice, environmental, faith, health and labor groups to push Congress to ban companies from disconnecting customers’ utilities, including broadband connections. 

“Last year, Reps. Cori Bush, Jamaal Bowman and Rashida Tlaib introduced the Utility Justice Human Rights Resolution, which declares that access to broadband, water, power, heating and cooling are human rights,” Free Press Action states.

Frandsen formerly worked for the The Friends Committee on National Legislation (FCNL), an activist and lobbying organization associated with the Quakers, which advocates for a broad range of leftist economic politics and social-justice causes.