Lawmakers drop journalism act from ‘must-pass’ defense spending bill under pressure from Facebook
An effort to add proposed journalism legislation to an annual “must-pass” defense spending bill was shot down by lawmakers after a public face off with Meta/Facebook over required payments to publishers for online news content. The 4,408-page text of the National Defense Authorization Act, released Tuesday evening, did not include any reference to the journalism bill.
The Journalism Competition and Preservation Act would temporarily exempt newspapers, broadcasters and other publishers from antitrust laws to collectively negotiate an annual fee from Google and Meta/Facebook, which dominate the nearly $250 billion U.S. digital advertising market.
