Beyond Fixing Facebook

The report calls for a tax on targeted online advertising to respond to the crisis in journalism and fund diverse, local, independent and non-commercial news and information. The report proposes a series of proposals to levy a small tax on ads sold by highly profitable companies like Facebook and Google. The proceeds would go to support local-news startups, sustain investigative projects, seed civic-engagement initiatives, and lift up diverse voices that have long been excluded from traditional media coverage. Under one Free Press proposal, a 2 percent ad tax on all online enterprises that in 2018 earned more than $200 million in annual digital-ad revenues would yield more than $1.8 billion a year for a new and independent Public Interest Media Endowment that would hand out grants to news and information projects.