Washington, D.C. — With the release of an updated version of the bipartisan Journalism Competition and Preservation Act (JCPA) earlier this week, the American Economic Liberties Project is today rereleasing a joint report with Media Justice and News Media Alliance, “Minority-Owned Media and the Digital Duopoly.” The product of an extensive research and information-gathering effort that included conducting interviews with several representatives from minority-owned news outlets, the report spells out how Big Tech is eroding minority-owned media and encourages Congress to quickly pass the JCPA.

Big Tech has played a key role in the decline of American journalism. Even as the nation has lost 1,800 newspapers since 2004, technology giants Facebook and Google claim larger and larger shares of the online ad revenue that newspapers and local media outlets depend on. Yet as the report details, their impact has been particularly devastating for minority news outlets and outlets designed for underrepresented communities.

The latest version of the JCPA, which has broad support in both the House and Senate, is a bipartisan solution to Big Tech’s exploitation of small and local news media organizations, including minority-owned media. It empowers journalism providers to negotiate fair compensation for their work when it appears on digital platforms, and allows them to continue to provide critical services to the communities they serve. Smaller publishers — many of them minority owned — do not have the ability to negotiate these deals on their own. This legislation would extend a lifeline to these publications and help level the playing field for the journalism industry.

Read the full report, Minority-Owned Media and the Digital Duopoly, here. 

Learn more about Economic Liberties here.

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The American Economic Liberties Project works to ensure America’s system of commerce is structured to advance, rather than undermine, economic liberty, fair commerce, and a secure, inclusive democracy. Economic Liberties believes true economic liberty means entrepreneurs and businesses large and small succeed on the merits of their ideas and hard work; commerce empowers consumers, workers, farmers, and engineers instead of subjecting them to discrimination and abuse from financiers and monopolists; foreign trade arrangements support domestic security and democracy; and wealth is broadly distributed to support equitable political power.