EL SEGUNDO, CA - APRIL 17: The Los Angeles Times building and newsroom along Imperial Highway on Friday, April 17, 2020 in El Segundo, CA. (Kent Nishimura / Los Angeles Times via Getty Images)
Sacramento, California – Less than a year after California struck a high-profile $125 million deal with Google to support local journalism, Governor Gavin Newsom proposes slashing the state’s contribution by two-thirds—before a single dollar has reached newsrooms.
Announced last August, the deal committed California and Google to jointly fund a $125 million initiative over five years to bolster struggling local news outlets. In return, lawmakers dropped two proposed bills that would have forced tech giants to compensate news publishers for using their content.
But under Newsom’s May budget revision, the state’s first-year payment to the fund would be reduced from $30 million to $10 million. The change is part of an effort to close a projected $12 billion deficit for the 2025-2026 fiscal year.
State finance officials say the cut is purely budgetary. But journalism advocates are furious.
“It was already too small, and they’ve walked in the wrong direction from it,” said Steven Waldman, president of Rebuild Local News. “Misinformation is flooding into the vacuum left by the collapse of local news. Time is of the essence.”
The move also casts doubt over Google’s commitment. The tech company had pledged to match state contributions but has not yet made its $15 million initial payment. Waldman noted that without a formal agreement or timeline, there’s little to hold Google accountable if the state falters.
Further complicating matters, UC Berkeley declined the role initially suggested as the fund administrator, leaving the program without oversight or a roadmap. Google and Newsom’s office declined to comment.
While controversial, the deal was seen as a compromise after intense lobbying. Google spent nearly $11 million opposing the original legislation—90 times its typical quarterly spending in Sacramento.
Former Senator Steve Glazer, who authored one of the scrapped bills, warned that the state’s retreat gives Google cover to reduce its funding. “They insisted on a state match so it wouldn’t set a precedent for other states,” Glazer said. “Now they have an excuse to back off.”
The cutback comes amid a deepening crisis in California’s news industry. The state has lost one-third of its newspapers since 2005, an erosion experts say fuels polarization and weakens democracy.
