An Oregon proposal that would have saved newsroom jobs and revived its ailing local-news industry died on Tuesday.
Oregon was poised to set a precedent and become the first state requiring tech giants to fairly compensate publishers for the value local news adds to their online platforms.
But a slim majority of state senators voted no, giving another victory to Google and Meta. The companies fought the measure with the same threats and lobbying tactics they’ve used to kill or weaken similar policies around the world.
The next showdown will be in the United Kingdom. On the same day Oregon Senate Bill 686 died, the U.K. announced regulatory action to help publishers get fairly paid by Google.
It will decide by October how to address Google’s dominance in search and search advertising. A priority is securing “more control and transparency for publishers over how their content collected for search is used, including in AI-generated responses and search results more generally.”
Tech giants willingly pay a few of the largest publishers to use their content. Other digital media, such as music and movies, have protections from unauthorized use online.
Smaller, local publishers don’t have leverage or resources to make such deals. Google, Meta and their allies have fended off every state and federal effort to level this playing field in the U.S. with legislation.
California’s similar legislation died last year. Instead, its governor cut a deal with Google to provide grants. They have since deeply cut the grant funding.
Given the lobbying in Oregon, Tuesday’s vote was close. It needed 17 yes votes and appeared to receive 15. At the last minute a co-sponsor switched to no, so he could refer the bill back to a committee, leaving the final tally 14 yes, 15 no.
The lead sponsor, Sen. Khanh Pham, issued a statement afterward vowing “to continue fighting” for the legislation. A staffer said she’s still deciding whether to try again during the short legislative session in 2026 or the next full session, in 2027.
“I’m hopeful we’ll be able to revisit it in the short session in 2026. We’ve built a broad coalition that includes journalists, publishers, labor, civic leaders,” said John Maher, president of The Oregonian.
SB 686 called for dominant tech platforms to pay Oregon news outlets a combined $122 million yearly, a conservative estimate of the value provided. Alternatively, platforms could negotiate deals with each outlet, or enter arbitration to settle payments.
Even if the bill cleared the Senate Tuesday, it may have been too late to get House approval before the Legislature adjourns.
Senators did have a robust debate, a key Republican siding with the tech firms and the few news outlets raising concerns about 686.
A list of objections was read by state Sen. Dan Bonham, the minority leader from The Dalles, where Google has several datacenters. He cited legal concerns and threats the companies made to block Oregonians from accessing news via their sites. Bonham said colleagues must vote no to protect the free press and Oregon’s Constitution.
Similar threats had the opposite effect on conservative leaders in Australia, who passed legislation in 2021 that 686 is partly modeled on. A version in Congress was supported by top Republicans and conservative outlets like Newsmax and Daily Caller but stalled in 2022.
Oregon Democrats said legal concerns were overblown and that most news outlets are aware of the risks and still believe 686 is the right approach.
“No one can stand on this floor and say ‘here’s how that’s going to work out’ with absolute confidence, we don’t absolutely know,” Sen. Jeff Golden said on the Senate floor. “What we do know is that struggling news outlets in this state, in a great majority, support this bill, believe that the outcomes and the consequences are going to increase traffic, increase revenue, increase their economic viability.”
Golden noted that 51 of the state’s newspapers signed onto an Oregonian editorial, written by Maher, supporting 686.
Supporters produce most of the local journalism in Oregon, which has around 65 remaining newspapers and around 90 news outlets altogether.
More will close, and more jobs will be lost, before the Legislature reconvenes.
Pham, in her opening comments, said 18 outlets closed since she began working on the bill in 2022 and Oregon lost 75% of its local journalists over the last two decades.
“Colleagues, local journalism is critical to our democracy and journalism is struggling,” she said.
Pham also noted that layoffs happened last week at the Portland Tribune.
The Oregonian reported that Carpenter Media Group, the Southern chain that bought the Tribune last June, cut more than a dozen employees at the Tribune and sister papers. It’s also eliminating print editions of the Tribune and papers in Milwaukie and Oregon City, and cutting its Gresham paper from two weekly editions to one.
Policies like 686 won’t prevent stingy chains from cutting costs.
But they change the calculus. They create a powerful incentive to retain and invest in local newsroom staff, because payments from tech companies would be based on the number of journalists employed.
Steady, recurring payment for online work would also benefit news startups and stabilize the entire industry, which in turn strengthens civic engagement, accountability and democracy.
That won’t happen, though, if legislators keep giving parsimonious California trillionaires more credence than the trusted voices in their local communities.
