Myers: Local journalism is at risk in South Dakota: Johnson, Thune sign on to bills that could help

Update: During the weekend of Aug. 6-7, Sen. John Thune signed on as a co-sponsor of S.B. 673, the Journalism Competition and Preservation Act of 2021. There are now 14 bipartisan co-sponsors of the bill, including Thune, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) and Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.).

The next step for the legislation is a markup period, where the Senate Judiciary Committee will discuss, amend or rewrite portions of the bill before it would move on to the full Senate.

The House version of the bill, H.B. 1735, is also making its way through Congress with 65 co-sponsors, including South Dakota Representative Dusty Johnson. The House Judiciary Committee will also be marking up the House bill.

More people read the Argus Leader today than they have in the history of the Argus Leader. Far fewer are paying for it.

That’s pretty much my go-to line whenever I’m asked how the Argus Leader is doing. And I’m asked that question all the time. There are a lot of forces at play, and most of them are no longer new, but decades old and cliché at this point.

From South Dakota’s smallest weekly to the Argus Leader, the shift of readership and advertising to online platforms has dramatically shrunk the revenue that supports local reporting.

In just the last 18 months, South Dakota has lost 17 newspapers, according to David Bordewyk, executive director of the South Dakota Newspaper Association.

It’s a pattern seen across the country. The news industry has lost more than 28,000 jobs since 2008, and more than 1,800 communities have lost their local newspapers since 2004, according to the News Media Alliance.

It comes down to this: The Argus Leader doesn’t have an audience problem; we’ve got a money problem. And a significant reason is that at a very base business level, we are not getting paid for the unique, in-demand and valued services we provide.

It’s not that fewer people are interested in the news that their trusted local newspapers provide: 83% of South Dakota adults read a print or digital newspaper, according to South Dakota Newspaper Association data. Counting print and online readership combined, more Americans read the work of newspaper journalists than ever before.

It’s the same story I opened this column with: It’s not a readership challenge; it’s a financial one.

A big part of the problem is that two tech giants, Google and Facebook, have a stranglehold on online news and advertising, denying newspapers the revenue they deserve. The same is true for local broadcasters.

‘Big Tech’ has the decks stacked

First, they literally control access to the news. Research shows most Americans access their news from whatever surfaces in their Facebook feed or through Google searches. At the Argus Leader, more than 65% of our traffic comes directly from Facebook and Google. And at their whim, the two companies change the algorithms that control what users see easily and what they don’t.

Google and Facebook have huge returns from distributing the in-demand news content that our newspapers provide, which in turn boosts their advertising revenue. But they long have made the business decision to pay publishers little if anything for their journalism, in contrast to the companies' practice of compensating music publishers and other creators.

Those two companies alone control an estimated 70% of digital ad spending, according to the News Media Alliance. While some news organizations participate in advertising partnerships, the tech giants return only a fraction of revenue to participating publishers. The tech companies also leverage the vast amount of data they collect on users to attract even more business and shut out competitors.

The result is that newspapers are cut off from revenue needed to pay reporters, photographers and editors to cover local news in their communities.

Antitrust bill could help publishers gain fair payment for their content

What can be done to combat big tech’s anticompetitive practices and give local publishers a better shot at reclaiming a fair return?

One step in the right direction would be passage of the Journalism Competition and Preservation Act, which would allow for a temporary antitrust exemption to permit news organizations big and small to work together to negotiate with Google and Facebook to secure fair compensation for the journalism they produce.

The bills (there are nearly identical House and Senate efforts) have bipartisan sponsors and support, including South Dakota Representative Dusty Johnson, who is a co-sponsor of the house version.

I want to thank Rep. Johnson for his continued support of the news industry over the years, and specifically for his sponsorship.

Along with other newspaper representatives, I recently had the opportunity to speak about the bill with U.S. Sen. John Thune, the second-ranking Republican in the Senate and South Dakota’s senior senator. Like Johnson, Thune has also been a supporter of our state’s local newspapers, and has far more often than most made himself available for discussion, interviews and even debates over the years.

I asked him specifically to lend his voice, influence and sponsorship to this vital effort.

Thune, in his normal pragmatic approach, said he understood the effort and knew something has to be done to support the news industry. He lauded the work South Dakota journalists do every day, and underscored the important role that local news organizations play in their communities.

As always, Thune listened as I and colleagues laid out our argument, and afterward asked smart questions. I trust he’ll give the bill fair consideration. I encourage South Dakotans to ask both Thune and Senator Mike Rounds to do the same.

The bill could be a transformative catalyst in resetting the competitive landscape and helping maintain a local newspaper in more of our towns.

Cory Myers is the Argus Leader’s news director. He welcomes your questions, story ideas or concerns at 605-951-3689, ctmyers@argusleader.com, or on Twitter @sigepcory

This article originally appeared on Sioux Falls Argus Leader: Local journalism is at risk; bill in Congress could help