The foundations and principles that shaped our model law.
Legislative Foundations
The local journalist employment credit model law draws lessons from enacted legislation in Illinois, New York, and New Mexico as well as bills introduced in California, Washington, Virginia, Maryland, New Jersey, and at the federal level in recent years.
The groundbreaking Illinois Local Journalism Sustainability Tax Incentive Program, introduced by Senator Steve Stadelman, was the first state-level journalist employment tax credit to be implemented in the United States. In 2025, the program’s first year, it supported more than 260 local journalist positions at over 120 outlets statewide. Our in-depth analysis of the first year of that program is available here.
The New York Empire State Newspaper and Broadcast Media Jobs Program provided a second reference point for how this type of policy can be scaled and structured differently.
We studied the statute and implementation experience of both programs closely. Where the model law departs from or builds on those precedents, it is generally because of a practical lesson learned during their rollout. For example, the model law’s provisions on payroll processor guidance, the grant module for non-profits, and the explicit inclusion of sole proprietors all reflect friction points identified in early implementation.
Design Principles
All Rebuild Local News model policies are designed to be nonpartisan, platform neutral, content neutral, and local. In particular, this model law is guided by the following principles:
- Benefit eligibility is formula-based and content-neutral. This model law does not allow government officials to pick winners and losers or make subjective judgements about who is a legitimate local news outlet.
- The credit should work for all types of local news organizations. Print, digital, and broadcast outlets face different economic pressures but serve the same journalistic function. For-profit businesses, nonprofits, and sole proprietors all produce essential local journalism. The model law is structured so that organizational form does not determine whether or how much an outlet benefits.
- The credit should prioritize the smallest and most vulnerable outlets without excluding larger ones. The tiered retention credit channels proportionally more support to newsrooms with five or fewer journalists, reflecting the reality that these outlets operate on the thinnest margins and serve communities least likely to have alternative sources of local news. Larger outlets remain eligible but receive a lower per-journalist rate, and individual and affiliated group caps further ensure broad distribution.
- The model law should be adaptable. States vary enormously in their tax systems, budget processes, administrative capacity, and the size and composition of their local news ecosystems. We drafted the model law with placeholders and alternative provisions so that practitioners can tailor it to their state without rebuilding the policy from scratch.
Acknowledgments
This model law reflects the expertise and thoughtful feedback of many people and organizations. We are particularly grateful to the members of our steering committee and the broader Rebuild Local News coalition who contributed their time, knowledge, and candid criticism throughout the drafting process.
Special thanks to individuals who shared feedback in various stages of the development of this model law, including Brandi Rivera with the Association of Alternative Newsmedia, Chris Krewson with LION Publishers, Dylan Smith with the Tucson Sentinel, Jon Schleuss with NewsGuild-CWA, Karen Rundlet and Courtney Lewis with the Institute for Nonprofit News, Matthew Mantica with American Journalism Project, Toni Draper with AFRO American Newspapers, Jo Easton with Bangor Daily News, and Francis Wick with Wick Communications.
We also owe a significant debt to the legislators, agency staff, and news organizations involved in the Illinois and New York programs, whose real-world experience implementing these policies made our model law substantially better than it would have been as a purely theoretical exercise.
We are fortunate to work alongside many dedicated partners to rebuild a thriving local news ecosystem for strong local communities. This model law is offered as a shared resource for anyone working toward that goal. Please share any feedback, questions, and suggestions for improvement with geneperry@rebuildlocalnews.org.