I am somewhat optimistic by this turn of events. California Assembly Member Buffy Wicks used her bill as a forcing mechanism to bring about serious and productive negotiations with Google -- and next other tech companies -- for a better outcome than legislation that led up to this in Germany, Spain, the EU, Australia, and Canada.
In my research on Wicks' bill, AB886, and the history of California media, and in my testimony before a committee of the California Senate, I favored a fund with private and public funds managed by an independent board, administered in a university, to support specific proposals meeting specific goals rather than reflexively lining the pockets of the hedge-fund owned newspapers that are primarily responsible for the ruin of much of California news.
The fund in California will be based on employment of news organizations and, since money is fungible, will end up benefitting the bottom lines of hedge funds. But Google will continue its support of its News Showcase and Google News Intiative to benefit innovation in news. I'd have preferred a fund such as that in New Jersey, the NJ Civic Info Consortium. There are questions yet to be answered: the final makeup of the board overseeing the fund and how accountability for the use of resources will be administered.
I suspect that the lobbyists who wrote legislation designed to benefit primarily their corporate funders are less than pleased and for that I have only Schadenfreude. The test of this effort will be whether the fund supports real innovation and equity in diverse independent and community media in the state.
This agreement is better than either of the bills that were before the Senate and Assembly and the process demonstrates that given the opportunity for fruitful negotiation, many parties can benefit.
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