Sen. Durbin joins committee colleages in voting for journalism negotation bill

The U.S. Senate Committee on the Judiciary is moving a bill forward that allows independent journalism and news organizations to negotiate with Big Tech companies that profit from their new content. Illinois Sen. Dick Durbin, who chairs the committee, says there has been a massive decline in local news over the past few decades driven, in part, by “large online gatekeepers like Google and Facebook siphoning away their advertising revenue used to fund local news.” The Journalism Competition and Preservation Act would allow new publishers with fewer than 1,500 full-time employees to negotiate fair compensation with tech companies. The bill passed the committee with a 14-7 vote and is recieving bipartisan support. It could head to the full U.S. Congress later this year.