House Antitrust Subcommittee Looks at Impact of Online Platforms on Journalism and Competition

The House Judiciary Antitrust Subcommittee held the hearing "Online Platforms and Market Power, Part 1: The Free and Diverse Press", beginning its look at antitrust issues related to the practice of journalism in the age of online platforms with enormous market power. The News Media Alliance, whose president, David Chavern, was testifying, has called on Congress to give news outlets an antitrust exemption so they can flex some collective muscle and negotiate for compensation for all that news content being aggregated and distributed by Facebook, Google and other platforms. Also testifying were Gene Kimmelman of Public Knowledge, Sally Hubbard of Open Markets Institute, Matthew Schruers of the Computer and Communications Industry Association (CCIA), David Pitofsky, general counsel at News Corp, and Kevin Riley of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Bipartisan legislation that would create that antitrust exemption, the Journalism Competition and Preservation Act, the has been introduced in the Judiciary Committee by Antitrust Committee Chairman David Cicilline (D-RI) and full Judiciary Committee Ranking Member Doug Collins (R-GA).