Washington – The Senate Judiciary Committee has approved S. 673, the Journalism Competition and Preservation Act, after a new amendment was adopted during the markup Thursday. This follows partisan disagreement over the controversial legislation, which proposes to exempt some news media outlets from antitrust laws and encourages the formation of a news cartel.
Unfortunately the bill still fails to address the underlying problems that led the Committee to put aside the legislation several times.
The Computer & Communications Industry Association has defended competition in the marketplace for 50 years and fought media consolidation and mergers including Comcast-NBC and Sinclair-Tribune. CCIA submitted a statement for the Committee for a scheduled markup earlier this month.
The following can be attributed to CCIA President Matt Schruers:
“The JCPA continues to be an unprecedented government overreach. It encourages the creation of a media cartel which will impose link taxes, and it threatens to hamstring digital services’ efforts to moderate dangerous content with ‘must-carry’ obligations.
“While objective journalism is critical to informing voters, inserting federal regulators into private sector business negotiations, mandating carriage of what the government thinks is ‘news,’ and promoting cartels is an irresponsible way to encourage an independent and robust news media.”
For more on the pre-amendment version of the JCPA, see: “The JCPA Has Not Improved With Age.”
About CCIA:
CCIA is an international, not-for-profit trade association representing a broad cross section of communications and technology firms. For 50 years, CCIA has promoted open markets, open systems, and open networks. CCIA members employ more than 1.6 million workers, invest more than $100 billion in research and development, and contribute trillions of dollars in productivity to the global economy. For more, visit www.ccianet.org