California pulls back on its commitment to fund local news
On May 14, the L.A. Times reported that newsrooms in California would receive only a third of the $30 million that they were slated to receive from the state this year as part of the much-debated News Transformation Fund that was supposed to, you know, transform the news industry, or at least the dire state of funding for local journalism in California.
A California Department of Finance spokesperson told the L.A. Times that “the sole reason for the reduction is more limited/fewer resources than projected in the January budget.” The state budget is generally a bit of a mess right now; California Governor Gavin Newsom has said the state is facing a $12 billion shortfall, and has also proposed scaling back healthcare for undocumented immigrants, overtime hours for in-home support service workers, and coverage for weight-loss drugs like Ozempic.
Newsom’s cuts are the latest low point in the rollercoaster saga of the News Transformation Fund. Ken Doctor — a Nieman Lab contributor and a California publisher himself — wrote last year that the bill in its final form ensures that significant funds would go to local journalists.
As part of the settlement, which would have paid out a total of $125 million to local newsrooms over five years, Google was slated to pay $55 million to the fund, starting with a $15 million payment this year, and the state was supposed to contribute a total of $70 million. Google did not respond to a request for comment by press time, but there’s no apparent reason why its commitment should be affected by the state’s move.
“Tragically, today’s news was totally foreseeable,” Matt Pearce, director of policy at Rebuild Local News, wrote on LinkedIn. “California’s unionized local journalists were fiercely critical of the Google settlement for exactly this reason — an unregulated charitable partnership would be vulnerable to budget pressures and backsliding at any moment.”
The rug has been pulled.
https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2025-05-14/newsom-proposes-slashing-funding-to-california-newsrooms-by-20-million-citing-budget-issues— Ben Welsh (@palewi.re) May 15, 2025 at 5:05 AM
The accelerating disappointment of California’s initiative to aid local news
www.latimes.com/california/s…— Richard Tofel (@dicktofel.bsky.social) May 15, 2025 at 10:47 AM
Huh, almost like requiring Google to pay journalists for profiting off their work was a better idea to begin with.
— Sammy Roth (@sammyroth.bsky.social) May 15, 2025 at 1:04 AM