As the world went digital, people quickly abandoned the Sunday paper and grabbed their smartphones to read the news. Advertisers followed suit as digital platforms became more valuable real estate than print newspapers, leaving California news outlets desperate to find ways to remain profitable and relevant.
Supporters of the bill — including the California News Publishers Association and the Western Media Guild, which represents journalists at the Los Angeles Times — believe Assembly Bill 886 will give the industry a much-needed boost by requiring online platforms like Google to pay news outlets when they link to their content. News outlets must spend at least 70 percent of the funds they receive on their staff.
A second bill being considered by California lawmakers, Senate Bill 1327, would charge Amazon, Meta and Google a “data extraction mitigation fee” for data they collect from users. The funds would go to support local newsrooms.
According to a 2023 report from Northwestern Medill School of Journalism, California has lost a third of its newspapers since 2005. The number of journalists in the state has fallen by 68% since then, and despite efforts to shift to digital formats, news outlets are struggling to attract readers and subscribers.
The Los Angeles Times cut more than 20% of its newsroom in January, marking one of the largest staff reductions in the paper’s 142-year history. Since the paper’s owner, Patrick Soon-Shiong, sold the San Diego Union-Tribune to a hedge fund in July 2023, its staff has been reduced by about 30%. LAist is also facing “a significant budget shortfall” over the next two years and has offered voluntary severance packages to journalists ahead of a potential round of layoffs.
Americans are turning to social media for news, citing its convenience and speed. The share of Americans using social media for news rose from 27% in 2013 to 48% in 2024, according to the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism’s 2024 Digital News Report.
But concern about unreliable sources and misinformation has been growing. Four in 10 Americans who get their information from social media say they dislike inaccuracy, up from three in 10 in 2018, according to a 2023 Pew Research Center survey. After the 2016 presidential election, about a quarter of Americans said they shared fabricated news, knowingly or unknowingly.
As conspiracies and misinformation spread and exacerbate polarization, local newsrooms meant to hold officials accountable and keep community members well-informed are becoming increasingly rare.
As the two bills move through the state Legislature, here's what you need to know about California's shrinking news industry and the evolving media advertising landscape.
Sunday circulation of some of California’s largest newspapers, including the Los Angeles Times, Orange County Register and San Diego Union-Tribune, has fallen by at least 30% since 2015. The Fresno Bee has seen the largest percentage decline in circulation among Sunday newspapers, dropping 79% in just eight years. Its daily average of 110,400 in 2015 plummeted to 23,000 in 2023.
“There’s no question that we’re in a brutal time for journalism employment,” said Gabriel Kahn, a professor of professional journalism practice at USC. “Jobs are shrinking and local coverage is disappearing.”
According to data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, the San Francisco Bay Area has seen the largest drop in journalism jobs per 1,000 jobs in the state since 2009. In 2009, one in every 1,000 employed people worked as a journalist. By 2023, only half of those jobs will remain.
While the Bay Area experienced a marked decline in the number of journalists in the early 2010s, journalism employment has been slowly increasing since 2015.
Kahn said the number of journalists in the Bay Area is driven by the national prominence of Silicon Valley, which has consistently made headlines in recent years with topics like social media, artificial intelligence and tech figures like Elon Musk.
“Covering current affairs, whether it’s celebrities in Los Angeles, technology or politics… can attract national audiences, so there will always be demand for people who produce that kind of journalistic content,” he said. “Silicon Valley has always had ways to grow, and as it grows, journalists are added to cover that growth.”
Journalism jobs continue to be concentrated in metropolitan centers such as Los Angeles, San Francisco, San Diego, Sacramento and San Jose. The number of journalists in Los Angeles and Orange County increased by 34% over the past decade, while the number in San Jose and San Diego remained virtually unchanged.
However, the number of journalists in the state capital has plummeted by a remarkable 57% over the past decade. The Sacramento area has seen its largest drop in total journalism employment since 2013.
McClatchy, publisher of the Sacramento Bee and dozens of other news outlets across the country, filed for bankruptcy in 2020 and was acquired by a New Jersey hedge fund that same year. Television stations have also consolidated news coverage in Sacramento by doing the same thing with less, Kahn said.
“The truth is that this is still the place where a $300 billion budget is approved. [and] Many businesses [gets] “I'm surprised there aren't more transactions,” he said. [coverage].”
As social media and search engines dominate the advertising business that once powered the journalism industry, many California news outlets that have clung to old business models are seeing their money go down the drain, Kahn said.
National digital advertising spending in California increased 54% from 2018, while print advertising decreased 27%, according to Borrell Associates.
The most popular social media platform for election-related news among registered California voters is YouTube, followed by Facebook, Instagram, X and TikTok. And as more Americans experience news fatigue and turn to social media for news and comedic entertainment, news outlets continue to lose digital readers.
Ten major California news websites, including latimes.com, sfchronicle.com and ocregister.com, have seen a drop of at least 35% in total unique visitors since January 2021.
The OC Register website recorded one of the largest percentage declines in the past three years, at 72%.
Kahn attributed part of the loss of digital readers to difficulties in optimizing journalistic content for search engines.
“One of the main problems facing journalism is that its audience is dependent on Silicon Valley giants and their algorithms,” Kahn said.
A survey by the University of California, Berkeley's Institute of Governmental Studies conducted from May 29 to June 4 found that California's registered voters rely on Google and other search engines almost as much as they rely on newspapers and magazines for news about election-related issues.
Digital advertising has become a major business for Google parent company Alphabet, whose revenue has nearly quadrupled over the past decade. Google advertising, which includes Google search, YouTube ads and other networks, generated a record $237.8 billion in 2023.
The U.S. Justice Department and eight states, including California, filed a landmark antitrust case against Google in 2023, accusing it of abusing its power to monopolize the digital advertising market.
“Any money that falls into these [journalism] “Institutions are going to be positive, because they’ve basically been watching the bathwater drain out of the water for the last decade and a half,” Kahn said.
