Newsom signs landmark bill aimed at giving lifeline to struggling California newsrooms

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Set us as preferred Gov.Gavin Newsom signed a landmark bill that would give a financial boost to California’s struggling newsrooms.Assembly Bill 2222 will create refundable tax credits for California local news organizations based on the number of journalists they employ.

It passed through both houses.It marks an innovative yet controversial attempt to slow the decline of local journalism.The bill, called the Community Newsroom Employment and Workforce Sustainability Act, works by assigning a “job retention credit” of $20,000 per journalist for up to five positions, and after that $15,000 for every additional journalist.

Part-time positions will be awarded half-credits.It also stacks an additional $15,000 credit for each new hire, to incentivize expanding journalist head counts.Before signing the bill Wednesday morning, Newsom spoke about what he called the “assault on the free press and the First Amendment..coming from Washington D.C.

and Donald Trump.”“It’s journalists that need to report those stories and local journalists that need to uncover and sort of peel back the facade if democracy is going to survive, let alone thrive,” Newsom said.The bill was supported by the California News Publishers Assn., of which the Los Angeles Times is a member and a wide range of other community news boosters.Backers said it could be a lifeline to local news organizations, many of which have struggled to maintain staffing levels over the past two decades.California has lost more than 12,000 of its local journalists since 2002, according to nonprofit advocacy group Rebuild Local News.

And almost 40% of all local U.S.newspapers have vanished, according to an annual report on the state of local news put out by Northwestern University’s Medill journalism school.To pay for the credits, the bill would amend California’s t...