Google's $250M Deal with California to Fund Newsrooms May Be Stalled (politico.com) 25
Remember how California's government negotiated a 2024 deal where Google contributed millions to California's local newsrooms to offset advertisers moving to the search engine?
"A year after it was cemented — and billed as a model that could succeed where entire countries and continents had fallen short — the agreement is tangled in budget cuts, bureaucratic infighting and unresolved questions about who controls the money," reports Politico, "leaving journalists empty-handed and casting doubt on whether the lofty experiment will ever live up to its promise." The program, initially framed as a nearly $250 million commitment over five years, has secured just $20 million in new money for journalists in its first year, with no guarantee the funding will continue. It's changed hands twice since the University of California, Berkeley withdrew its support [with school officials "worried they wouldn't have enough of a say in how the money was distributed"]. Suggestions that other big tech players like ChatGPT-maker OpenAI could front more resources haven't materialized. A $62.5 million "AI accelerator" tied to the deal hasn't been set up yet.
Not a single newsroom has seen a dollar of funding, and there's no definitive timeline spelling out when they will... [The article adds later that state officials "have yet to draft precise rules for how California will decide which newsrooms get cash..."] Conversations with at least 20 people involved in the deal's rollout reveal how California's budget shortfalls and intraparty spats among Democrats scrambled it... California's struggle to launch its program has dampened hopes of replicating its model in other states such as Oregon, Illinois and New York, where lawmakers have tried but failed to make Big Tech pay for news...
When [California governor] Newsom unveiled his final state budget plan in May 2025 after a $12 billion deficit suddenly scrambled the state's finances, California's first-year commitment was reduced from $30 million to $10 million. Google followed suit within days and cut its first-year contribution from $15 million to $10 million... Whether the program even continues past 2026 is also unclear. Newsom's office declined to confirm whether the state will provide its $10 million commitment to the fund in the coming 2026-27 state budget. Newsom will also be termed out in 2027, and there's no requirement for his successor to honor the state's agreement with Google.
"A year after it was cemented — and billed as a model that could succeed where entire countries and continents had fallen short — the agreement is tangled in budget cuts, bureaucratic infighting and unresolved questions about who controls the money," reports Politico, "leaving journalists empty-handed and casting doubt on whether the lofty experiment will ever live up to its promise." The program, initially framed as a nearly $250 million commitment over five years, has secured just $20 million in new money for journalists in its first year, with no guarantee the funding will continue. It's changed hands twice since the University of California, Berkeley withdrew its support [with school officials "worried they wouldn't have enough of a say in how the money was distributed"]. Suggestions that other big tech players like ChatGPT-maker OpenAI could front more resources haven't materialized. A $62.5 million "AI accelerator" tied to the deal hasn't been set up yet.
Not a single newsroom has seen a dollar of funding, and there's no definitive timeline spelling out when they will... [The article adds later that state officials "have yet to draft precise rules for how California will decide which newsrooms get cash..."] Conversations with at least 20 people involved in the deal's rollout reveal how California's budget shortfalls and intraparty spats among Democrats scrambled it... California's struggle to launch its program has dampened hopes of replicating its model in other states such as Oregon, Illinois and New York, where lawmakers have tried but failed to make Big Tech pay for news...
When [California governor] Newsom unveiled his final state budget plan in May 2025 after a $12 billion deficit suddenly scrambled the state's finances, California's first-year commitment was reduced from $30 million to $10 million. Google followed suit within days and cut its first-year contribution from $15 million to $10 million... Whether the program even continues past 2026 is also unclear. Newsom's office declined to confirm whether the state will provide its $10 million commitment to the fund in the coming 2026-27 state budget. Newsom will also be termed out in 2027, and there's no requirement for his successor to honor the state's agreement with Google.
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They aren't (Score:2)
Most artificial boobs don't even look great. They always feel wrong. They can lead to loss of sensation and medical issues.
Dying... (Score:2)
Ah, my lovely state of California (Score:5, Insightful)
Where nobody cares about whether a problem is actually solved. Only about who gets control of the millions of dollars allocated towards solving it.
And actually, it's better if the problem *isn't* solved. Because then we clearly need more money.
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And actually, it's better if the problem *isn't* solved. Because then we clearly need more money.
Bingo. Buying votes is expensive.
The only way anyone could be surprised by this is if they've been in a coma for the last 30 years.
Correct (Score:3)
Google could have done it easier,
- List the newsrooms in California, number of reporters, local population size
- Pick X of them
- Setup a nonprofit to directly pay the salary + benefits of J reporters
- Set the nonprofit up so that a small portion of the funds go to pay overhead such as 5%
- Get the newsrooms to agree to keep the J reporters on staff and carry the news stories produced by them
- Review the above every year
The different nonprofits pay the Associated Press to report on certain topics such as educ
Yes, but remember the goal of the deal (Score:2)
Was not to support local news.
It was to support the politicians complaining about Google search eating local news. So they would stop pushing an even more costly legislative solution.
Simply supporting local news wouldn't have achieved that goal. Because no amount of support would solve the problem that people just aren't reading newspapers and watching local news anymore. They're getting their news through social media. Which, other than YouTube, is something Google is kinda terrible at. See Google+.
Re:Ah, my lovely state of California (Score:4)
This is in no way specific to California. Or to the United States, for that matter.
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It's common to any large bureaucracy. Of which government is very much one. It's one very good reason why the politics of growing government bigger and bigger never accomplish anything of value beyond more government workers requiring more tax collection to pay their salaries.
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I've been in California for all of 3.5 years, and there are two things I've learned:
- While it's known all over America how high California's taxes are, nobody here actually knows what that money gets spent on, other than politician salaries
- City level elected politicians get paid more than the US congress, some of them twice as much, and some even more than POTUS, like fire and police chiefs.
- Nobody has any idea how the government works, which includes the governor and the legislature, none of whom can s
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I did, and it's a lot lower than that.
https://www.azcentral.com/stor... [azcentral.com]
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Check here https://ebudget.ca.gov/budget/... [ca.gov]
Second data point (Score:2)
I've been in California for all of 3.5 years, and there are two things I've learned:
- While it's known all over America how high California's taxes are, nobody here actually knows what that money gets spent on, other than politician salaries
- City level elected politicians get paid more than the US congress, some of them twice as much, and some even more than POTUS, like fire and police chiefs.
- Nobody has any idea how the government works, which includes the governor and the legislature, none of whom can seem to figure out how much tax revenue they're bringing in, or how much the government is spending
Some years ago I took the NH tax burden and compared it to CA and tried to come up with an explanation. NH has no income tax or sales tax, most of its revenue comes from business taxes. NH property taxes fund local, not state, budgets.
I couldn't figure out why the numbers were so different. I've just now redone that calculation, and here's the results:
NH spends $5640 per person on state services, CA spends $12,500. More than double.
NH spends $850,000 per square mile, CA spends $1,960,000. More than double.
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Have they tried selling subscriptions? (Score:1)
Maybe this is a dumb question, but have the newspapers in California tried selling subscriptions to their readers?
I mean I'm sure they have tons of readers who really want to read their texts. I'm sure they'd be happy to pay for it, if only the newspapers would think to ask them for it.
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Maybe this is a dumb question, but have the newspapers
I want to point out that for the most part, there are no more newspapers, they are opinion papers. A bare, usually not well investigated set of facts (mostly a press release, unverified) followed by an entire banquet of opinion laid out on a smorgasbord of right wing memes or left wing wishful thinking, leaving "analysis" down to the basic divide of who is on first, what is on second, and I don't know is third base, leaving us to the unenviable occupant of short stop.
While most of the USA's opinion is forme
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I want to point out that for the most part they were always like this, but they used to expect that readers could read so they had to be a little more deceptive about it in some cases.
There is always bias. What stories get covered, who is interviewed, how they are reported was always biased.
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In the previous thread people were saying how you can't trust an AI on legal matters because it hallucinates. Does it mislead more or less than the real press, I wonder?
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Does it [AI] mislead more or less than the real press, I wonder?
That's a useful question. I will think on that, because I think at first blush that misinformation is misinformation, and the construction of a lie is of less import than it's effect. As one of my stock jokes, I say "We don't need to worry about AI, because it's attention span is only as long as it's power cord." but I read a disturbing piece about Anthropic's Caude. Haven't had time to read it completely as yet. My other stock thought is that lies you know are lies are useful insights into the motivation o
California Should Not Empower a Monopoly (Score:2)