Newspapers’ Embarrassing Lobbying Campaign

The newspaper industry has crawled up Capitol Hill once again to beg for an antitrust exemption it believes would give the business needed in its fight with Google and Facebook for advertising dollars. Currently, Google and Facebook collect 73 percent of all digital advertising. Members of the news industry believe that the two tech giants have exploited their dominance of the Web to unfairly collect digital dollars that rightfully belong to them. The Journalism Competition and Preservation Act of 2019, introduced in the House in April, would allow print and online news companies to cartelize into a united front against Google and Facebook. Under the new law, which would sunset in four years, the cartel could collectively withhold their content from Google, Facebook, and other sites and negotiate the terms under which the two tech giants could use their work. Anti-trust law currently prohibits such industry-wide collusion. This proposed antitrust exemption—being pushed by the 2,000-plus member News Media Alliance trade group—is misguided on several levels. For one thing, it would be wrong to pass a law that would prop up one media sector by selectively bestowing special competitive privileges on it. Instead of petitioning Congress for special privileges, the news industry needs to compete. If it can’t wrangle enough customers, it deserves what’s coming to it.

[Jack Shafer is Politico’s senior media writer.]