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Gov. Gavin Newsom’s funds proposal consists of no cash for a fund shaped final yr to spice up the state’s native newsrooms, casting doubt on whether or not a heralded effort to assist California journalists will quantity to something and the way critical Newsom is about supporting the struggling business.
It’s a major walkback from an August 2024 deal between state leaders and Google through which they agreed to collectively spend $175 million over 5 years to fund native journalism.
The deal, which Newsom hailed as a “main breakthrough in guaranteeing the survival of newsrooms” on the time, was reached after Google spent a file sum — $11 million — lobbying state lawmakers efficiently to drop two proposals that may have compelled Google to pay newsrooms for utilizing their content material. Below the settlement, the state would pay $70 million and Google $55 million into the newly established California Civic Media Fund for native information retailers. Google would additionally proceed issuing its annual $10-million newsroom grants.
However in Could 2025, citing funds restraints, Newsom slashed the state’s first-year dedication to simply $10 million for fiscal yr 2025-26, with no future state funding assured. Google subsequently stated it might match the state’s $10-million funding however no extra.
Google was clear within the deal that “its contributions have been contingent” on state funding, much like its journalism funding deal in Canada, stated Erin Ivie, spokesperson for Assemblymember Buffy Wicks, an Oakland Democrat who brokered the deal in 2024.
A 2019 research by the commerce group Information Media Alliance estimated that Google made $4.7 billion from information websites in 2018. Google’s mum or dad firm, Alphabet, remodeled $100 billion within the third quarter of 2025 alone — its “first ever $100-billion quarter,” stated Alphabet and Google CEO Sundar Pichai. By Wednesday, Alphabet’s market cap was over $4 trillion.
Not one of the $20 million pledged has reached native information retailers, drawing disappointment from journalism advocates. The Governor’s Workplace of Enterprise and Financial Improvement, which administers the funds, has obtained the cash and expects to distribute it this yr, stated company spokesperson Willie Rudman.
“At this level proper now, no one needs to be leaping up and down and getting excited,” California Information Publishers Assn. President Chuck Champion stated.
Newsom’s lack of proposed funding for future years angered Champion, who stated the governor did not hold his promise.
“He’s extra within the billionaires and his buddies than he’s keen on journalists who’re out on the road,” Champion stated. “He talks about democracy, he talks about how critically necessary it’s, after which he permits our journalists to starve on the vine.”
The dearth of future dedication from the state additionally raises the query whether or not Google will deposit something into the fund subsequent yr. Google Information Initiative didn’t instantly reply to a CalMatters inquiry for remark.
Newsom’s workplace didn’t reply to questions on his choice to skip the funding this yr, directing CalMatters to the state Division of Finance and Rudman.
Lawmaker guarantees to combat for extra funding
“There’s no going again on the deal,” Division of Finance Director Joe Stephenshaw confused to reporters throughout a funds briefing final week, saying that the state has already contributed the $10 million promised final yr.
Wicks stated funds restraints compelled Newsom’s hand final yr.
“What you noticed final yr was the funds being what it was,” she stated. “Packages throughout the board bought minimize and sliced, both bought utterly zeroed out or considerably diminished, and that is no totally different.”
However she stated she’s going to combat for extra funding.
“I’ve been working on the belief that [the state] will honor the multiyear dedication,” Wicks stated.
However even the complete quantity of the Google deal will not be sufficient to “arrest the collapse of unbiased neighborhood information in California,” stated former state Sen. Steve Glazer, an Orinda Democrat who authored a invoice that may have provided tax credit to employers of journalists by charging a charge to platforms like Google.
“Leaders can’t simply discuss defending our democracy,” he stated. “They should act to direct the assets to help unbiased information reporting that gives the oversight and accountability of our democratic establishments.”
The journalism business nationwide has been diminishing. Between 2005 and 2024, greater than 3,200 newspapers shut their doorways, in accordance with a 2024 report by the Native Information Initiative at Northwestern College.
As of that yr, California had 1.5 information retailers for each 100,000 residents, rating forty fifth amongst all 50 states and Washington, D.C. Between 2013 and 2024, the variety of newspaper journalists in California dropped by greater than half.
Congress final yr voted to strip public broadcast stations nationwide of federal funding, placing dozens of stations throughout California in peril. The Company for Public Broadcasting, a nationwide nonprofit that has funded public media since 1967, introduced its dissolution as a result of funding cuts final week.
California’s public broadcasters stand to lose as a lot as $30 million a yr as a result of federal cuts, stated Assemblymember Chris Ward, a San Diego Democrat, in a letter final month to legislative funds leaders requesting state funding for public media.
Ward, together with 11 different Democratic assemblymembers, is asking for $70 million subsequent yr for public broadcast stations.
“California is certainly one of solely 16 states that don’t present funding for public media,” he stated within the letter. “California’s 33 non-profit public media organizations present protection to over 90% of the state, and serve numerous communities in each [the] largest metropolitan areas and rural communities — companies that not solely embrace arts, tradition, and neighborhood engagement, however emergency alerts and training.”
The California Information Publishers Assn., which the Los Angeles Instances belongs to, has advocated for Google help for the information media.
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