Rep. Courtney wants Google and Facebook to share more ad revenue with struggling local newspapers. Proposed legislation would force social media giants to renegotiate with papers.

Elected officials who are occasionally the targets of negative news coverage are pausing their sometimes uneasy relationship with journalists to seek a way to strengthen the business of local news.

U.S. Rep. David Cicilline, D-R.I., has introduced legislation along with Rep. Joe Courtney, D-2nd, allowing news outlets struggling in a transformed business environment to negotiate with large online platforms that are reaping advertising dollars from news content generated by newspapers and broadcast outlets.

“This is really a crisis in American journalism and … a crisis in democracy and our civic life,” Cicilline, chairman of the House Antitrust Subcommittee, said Wednesday during an online news conference. “Unlike the sale of widgets this is really central to the functioning of our democracy.”

Platforms such as Facebook and Google “exploit their market dominance,” drawing increasing amounts of advertising and money, he said. The legislation would “stop the bleeding” by establishing a 48-month period for newspaper publishers to negotiate terms to bring back advertising dollars, Cicilline said.

“Local journalism is under unprecedented stress because of the changing economics and dynamics of the business model for small and local newspapers as well as small or local electronic media,” Courtney said.

Cicilline and Courtney cited a law enacted this year in Australia that requires Facebook and Google to negotiate deals for news material and links carried by their services or be forced into arbitration. If the parties fail to reach agreement, the law requires the links be taken down from the platforms.

Representatives of Facebook and Google did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Cicilline called the legislation a “stopgap” measure until broader industry competition emerges and that it’s expected to advance out of committee soon.

In the last two decades, almost 1,800 papers have closed or merged, creating “news deserts,” according to HD Media LLC, a West Virginia news organization that’s suing Facebook and Google. It accuses the two online platforms of monopolizing the digital advertising market.

Since 2006, newspaper advertising revenue has fallen by more than 50%, to $16.5 billion from $49 billion, HD Media said. Nearly 30,000 newspaper jobs disappeared — a 60% decline — from 1990 to 2016.

Cicilline said the local news market is dysfunctional, with little or no competition against all-powerful online platforms that can set the terms with weakened local news outlets.

Courtney and Cicilline said sharp cuts in staffing at newspapers have made it harder for them to publicize their congressional work. Courtney said that before his election to the House in 2008, his visits to Washington as a state legislator were covered by the Hartford Courant’s Washington, D.C., bureau, which has since been shut.

Stephen Singer can be reached at ssinger@courant.com.