Journalist associations lash out against the "undemocratic and secretive" pact between Google and California to finance local media

"The future of journalism should not be decided in backroom deals," seven senior members of journalists' groups protested about the recent deal between Google and the California Legislature, the first in the entire country.

Media Guild of the West, one of the groups critical of the measure, said in a statement that "not a single organization representing journalists and news workers agreed to this undemocratic and secretive deal with one of the businesses destroying our industry." 

The deal was announced by Assemblymember Buffy Wicks, who claimed it will be "empowering local news outlets up and down the state." The pact, explained her office, would provide about 250 million in public and private funding to California media over the next five years.

Details on how the distribution of the money will be made or decided are unknown at this time. Matt Pearce, president of the Media Guild of the West, said that although "no one knows that because the terms are secret," the pact includes automatic payments of taxpayer money to hedge funds.

Pearce thus contradicted claims by journalist and advocate for   the agreement Jeff Jarvis, who claimed the money would only be distributed by an independent board working out of UC Berkeley.

Wicks' office explains that the fund will be called the News Transformation Fund, and would receive funds from tech and the state. One of the repeated criticisms of the agreement is that the money will not be a direct payout from Google to the newspapers it uses for its services. So said Brian Merchant, a columnist for the LA Times:

"This bill was supposed to generate ~$75m a year for CA journalists, with big tech paying a tiny fee for hosting headlines that add value to their platforms, which they sell ads against.

Now, it's a 5-year plan for $250m split between the state—and including AI initiatives."

Another frequent criticism of the agreement that will go into effect in 2025 is that journalists and journalist associations say they had no say. Merchant rightly points out that Assemblyman Wicks' statement announcing the agreement does not name journalists among the parties who negotiated the agreement, but rather the state, publishers, big tech and philanthropists.

Artificial intelligence

"Journalists have been totally railroaded," argued Lee Hepner, senior legal counsel for the American Economic Liberties Project, and took aim at another controversial measure in the initiative: the creation of the National AI Innovation Accelerator that will distribute resources for the media to experiment with the use of Artificial Intelligence.

"Shady deals with illegal monopolists are no way to set AI policy," argued Lee, who claimed that the accelerator should be scrapped.

The statement explaining the initiative does not detail how these funds will be distributed, but does contend that it will be done "in collaboration with a private nonprofit."

Criticism within the Assembly

"Despite the good intentions of the parties involved, this proposal does not provide sufficient resources," claimed state Sen. Steve Glazer.

The Democrat argued that the agreement fell short compared to the one Google reached with Canadian authorities, and claimed that it "seriously" undermined efforts to reach a long-term solution (Glazer had proposed putting a tax on digital advertising revenue).

State Senate President Pro Tempore, Mike McGuire, sided with Glazer's criticism and praised his efforts to "hold Big Tech companies accountable for the profits they make off the backs of hard-working journalists."