Google and Facebook sucked profits from newspapers. Publishers are finally resisting.

Legislation in the House and Senate would provide a temporary “safe harbor” — a four-year antitrust exemption for news publishers as they negotiate with Google and Facebook over how news content is used and how advertising dollars are distributed. While Google and Facebook gave media organizations new, and popular, ways to distribute their journalism, they also sucked up much of the advertising revenue. Meanwhile, the tech platforms benefited because they drew lucrative audiences for “content” — the journalism produced by local reporters who, as a rule, are hard-working and not well paid. It’s encouraging to see the newspaper publishers better organized and more aggressive than in the past. It’s even more encouraging to see senators and representatives understand the value that local newspapers bring to their constituents.