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The JCPA Fails Journalism—Leave It Out of Year-End Legislation

In a time when local, independent and fact-based news is more critical than ever, the Journalism Competition and Preservation Act (JCPA) offers the wrong solution to the challenges facing news reporters and publishers. While action is needed to adequately support local journalism, the JCPA would do more harm than good. 

As currently written, the JCPA establishes a new, unconstitutional “access right” to links and snippets online, allowing media companies (which is broadly defined so that almost any outlet, broadcast station or blog is included) to form cartels and force online services to pay and carry content. Moreover, the content required to be “carried” would remain under the control of the same dominant media companies, further reducing the diversity of news sources currently available to consumers and diminishing the plurality of voices in the media landscape. 

Despite claims from corporate media organizations, the current language in the JCPA would create a government-mandated bailout for some of the largest media conglomerates like Gannett, Alden Global Capital and Sinclair Broadcast Group. The JCPA would only further empower these corporations to prioritize profits over the public’s needs and shutter local newsrooms to strengthen their market dominance. 

Since its introduction in 2021, the JCPA has failed to pass through Congress, and for good reason. Free speech advocates, bipartisan consumer advocates, librarians and archivists, startups and copyright law experts have voiced continued opposition to this legislation due to its many flaws. Experts across industries oppose the JCPA because it:

  • Rewards hedge funds and big media for destroying local journalism
  • Violates the First Amendment by forcing websites to carry third-party content
  • Expands rights of content owners beyond traditional bounds of copyright laws
  • Distorts access to information by forcing online services to pay for third-party links and snippets
  • Exacerbates and incentivizes misinformation and clickbait
  • Discourages hiring full-time journalists
  • Accelerates big media’s consolidation of local news outlets

As we approach the end of the year and must-pass legislation is debated, Re:Create urges lawmakers to consider the facts: the JCPA is deeply flawed legislation that would harm local journalism, limit public access to information and undermine our democracy. This isn’t the first time major media conglomerates have tried to sneak in must-pass legislation to benefit their profit hungry agenda. In 2020, they pushed through the Copyright Alternative in Small-Claims Enforcement Act (CASE Act), a law that has wasted millions of taxpayer dollars on an agency that spends most of its time churning through frivolous claims filed by cranks. The news industry can’t afford to let the same thing happen with the JCPA. Re:Create urges Congress to listen to the experts, put local journalism and democracy first and reject the JCPA. 

Below are additional resources on why the JCPA must be rejected in order to support the local news industry.

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