Cantwell report warns that Google and Facebook are killing local journalism as CEOs testify at Senate

The technology industry is pushing local journalism over the edge, according to a new report from the office of Sen. Maria Cantwell, a Democrat from Washington state.

The report released Tuesday predicts that by the end of 2020, newspaper revenue will be down 70% compared to 20 years ago and broadcast revenues will dip more than 40%. The losses have created “news deserts” in 200 counties across the U.S. where there are no local newspapers covering their communities. More than 40,000 newsroom employees have been laid off, 60% of the nation’s local journalism jobs, according to the report.

“Local news has been hijacked by a few large news aggregation platforms, most notably Google and Facebook, which have become the dominant players in online advertising,” the report says. “These trillion-dollar companies scrape local news content and data for their own sites and leverage their market dominance to force local news to accept little to no compensation for their intellectual property.”

Though the report acknowledges that the pandemic and other trends contribute to the accelerating decline of local news, Cantwell said that big tech companies “create a choke point for local news … and we have lost thousands of journalistic jobs that are important.”

Cantwell shared her position with Google CEO Sundar Pichai, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, and Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey during a hearing held Wednesday by the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation.

The hearing centered on a law that partially shields online platforms from liability for the content posted by their users. Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act has come under new scrutiny as tech companies struggle to contain misinformation, election interference, and hate speech on their platforms.

The wide-ranging hearing covered content moderation, privacy, next week’s election, and alleged political bias on social media. It is the latest evidence of a crackdown on the tech industry by the federal government. Last week, the Justice Department filed a lawsuit accusing Google of creating an illegal monopoly in search and advertising. Earlier this month, the U.S. House Judiciary Committee released a report claiming Apple, Facebook, Google, and Amazon abuse their market power following a hearing this summer with the CEOs of those companies.

During Wednesday’s hearing, Cantwell took the opportunity to reference her 67-page report and ask the executives how they plan to repair the reported damage their companies have done to local newsrooms.

Pichai said that Google believes in “raising news across our products because we realize the importance of journalism.” He cited Google’s initiatives to support journalism, including a relief fund for local newsrooms struggling during the pandemic, but Cantwell did not relent.

“The message from today’s hearing is the free press needs to live and be supported by all of us, and we look forward to discussing how we can make sure that they get fair return on their value,” she said.

Editor’s note: This story has been updated to correct the number of journalism jobs lost.