California may soon offer tax credits for local news. Could this be the goad that Massachusetts needs?

Earlier this year, it looked like California might be the place where government efforts to revive local news went to their grave. As I wrote for Poynter Online, a widely touted partnership between Google and the state that would have provided $250 million for community journalism over five years was scaled back drastically, the victim of budget pressures and political infighting.

Sign up for free email delivery of Media Nation — and become a supporter for just $6 a month.

But now California is on the verge of passing an ambitious bill to assist struggling news outlets. As Gretchen A. Peck reports for Editor & Publisher, the Community NEWS Act would provide significant tax credits for hiring and retaining journalists over a five-year period: $20,000 a year for retaining up to five full-time journalists; $15,000 for each additional full-timer; $7,500 for part-timers; and $15,000 for each full-timer hired to a new position.

Now the bill awaits Gov. Gavin Newsom’s signature. You would think he’d look at this as something he could tout as part of his nascent presidential campaign, but Newsom can be unpredictable. The bill passed both branches of the state legislature by a supermajority, so at least in theory it’s teed up to pass even in the face of a gubernatorial veto.

Rebuild Local News, the national nonprofit organization that was behind the legislation, says that it’s fully paid for by eliminating a tax write-off for annual executive compensation of more than $1 million, which will bring in $29 million a year. Moreover, though the benefits are being described as tax credits, they will also help nonprofit news organizations through some complicated accounting that Rebuild’s president and director of policy, Steven Waldman and Matt Pearce respectively, describe here.

The bill also includes safeguards guaranteeing independence from government interference while keeping pink-slime news sites away from the trough. (Pink-slime news is generally defined as websites masquerading as community journalism projects, usually with a political agenda.) Waldman and Pearce explain:

The program relies on objective, verifiable standards rather than government editorial judgment. All applicants must publicly disclose their ownership, maintain a corrections policy, and carry media liability insurance. Organizations controlled by political action committees or 501(c)(4) organizations are disqualified. Platform-specific requirements — such as FCC registration for broadcasters, USPS Periodicals permits for print, and audience data for digital outlets — provide further verification. These standards are designed to screen out bad actors without giving any government official discretion over editorial content.

News organizations owned by hedge funds and corporate chains would be eligible for assistance under the legislation, Waldman and Pearce write, on the grounds that good behavior should be rewarded: “If a hedge fund fires all the reporters, they lose all their tax credits. If they add reporters, they can gain.”

Although the California would represent the largest foray into government assistance for local news, Hanaa’ Tameez of Nieman Lab observes that there have been others, including Illinois, New York and Mexico. When I interviewed Waldman for Poynter Online earlier this year, he said his long-range goal was to reach $1 billion a year for local news support within 10 years.

Perhaps this will also serve as a goad to legislators in Massachusetts. As always, there are stirrings, but despite years of effort, those stirrings have not yet led to any concrete forms of assistance.

And not to end on a sour note, but this is largely a blue state phenomenon, which was inevitable after bipartisan efforts to pass state legislation died with the second coming of Donald Trump. Folks in red states need reliable local news, too, and deep red rural areas are among the parts of the country most likely to be without a reliable source. If Democrats regain the White House and Congress in 2029, perhaps there can be a renewed effort for federal assistance.