STATE ACTIVITY TRACKER
AB 611, which would create a 120-day notice period for the sale of legacy news outlets, with a twist: Employees of the outlet get a 60-day window to make their own ownership bids. California Common Cause, in partnership with Rebuild Local News, is spearheading support for the bill, which expands upon Illinois’ groundbreaking 120-day sale notice law. The bill has been referred to the Assembly Committee on Labor and Employment.
Near the end of the 2024 legislative session, Assemblymember Buffy Wicks (D-Oakland) and Governor Gavin Newsom reached a tentative agreement with Google to establish a fund supporting California newsrooms, with allocations based on the number of editorial staff. The state and Google would contribute $45 million in the first year, followed by $20 million annually. However, the deal has not been reviewed or approved by the Senate, and Newsom’s recent allocation of $30 million for the state’s share of the fund in his 2025-2026 budget proposal did not specify how the money should be spent. The initiative recently faced a setback when UC Berkeley’s School of Journalism announced it would not administer the program, and other universities are in the running to host.
The 2024 Google agreement led to the shelving of two key bills: AB 886, which sought to secure funding for local news through tech platform agreements or fees, and SB 1327, which aimed to levy a fee on digital ad revenues from major tech companies. As part of the deal, Google also committed to continuing its Google News Initiative and Showcase investments as well as participating in as-yet-to-be codified “National AI Accelerator.”
In September 2024, Gov. Newsom signed AB 1511, sponsored by Assemblymember Miguel Santiago (D-Los Angeles), requiring state agencies to develop a plan for increasing spending on ethnic and community media. The passage of this policy was driven by the leadership of the Latino Media Collaborative, California Black Media, and Ethnic Media Services.
In 2022, the state legislature allocated $25 million over three years to the UC Berkeley journalism school to fund fellowships for at least 40 reporters in local newsrooms across California. That funding is now nearing exhaustion after placing multiple classes of fellows.
Rebuild Local News partnered with independent news organizations in Connecticut to once again advance the policy. Other local news bills introduced in Connecticut in 2025 include HB5878, a refundable employment tax credit for news organizations. It establishes a refundable tax credit to news organizations that cover local communities in the state, in the amount of $15,000 per journalist employed in the state by such organization and $25,000 per new journalist hired in the state by such organization, with a cap on the amount a news organization is allowed of $150,000.
Other bills introduced this session include HB6418, which requires 120 days’ notice before the sale of a news organization to an out-of-state buyer. Under this bill, no owner of a news organization that primarily serves any community in the state may sell the organization to an entity not incorporated in the state without providing at least 120 days’ advance notice to the organization’s employees and community members. Another bill, HB6076, seeks to establish and fund at least twelve fellowship positions in local newsrooms for recent graduates of journalism programs at public institutions of higher education.
In May 2024, the Illinois Legislature passed a budget including an employment tax credit to support local news, committing $25 million over five years for newsrooms hiring or retaining local reporters. The subsidy is available to for-profit and nonprofit organizations with at least one full-time local reporter, providing $15,000 per current reporter and $25,000 per new hire. There is a $150,000 limit on how much a single newsroom can receive, and a $250,000 limit for any given corporation.
Additionally, the Strengthening Community Media bill was passed, requiring a 120-day notice to employees and the community before a local news organization can be sold to an out-of-state company. This “replanting” provision, the first of its kind to be passed, gives the community time to organize an acquisition bid to keep local news in local hands. The bill also creates a scholarship program for journalists from Illinois colleges who pledge to work in state newsrooms.
In 2025, the Illinois Department of Commerce released regulations for its refundable tax credit aimed at helping newsrooms hire and retain reporters. The Illinois Press Association is leading efforts to educate newsrooms about the application process.
The Chicago Independent Media Alliance (CIMA), which was key in securing the policy, is now led by Public Narrative, a Chicago-based nonprofit that offers resources to promote media literacy and amplify community voices. It will oversee the policy’s implementation, including publishing an annual report on how city ad dollars are distributed to eligible news outlets. Chicago’s initiative is the first government advertising set-aside since New York’s Advertising Boost Initiative, which has already steered millions to community news outlets.
A refundable journalist employment tax credit, HB0891, similar to those enacted in New York and Illinois, was introduced by Delegates Vogel and Foley. Newsrooms could claim up to $25,000 per journalist covering local news in Maryland for the first year of the program and then $15,000 for each following year. The bill is not likely to advance this year.
A local news bill introduced by Delegate Mary Lehman in 2025 would create a 120-day waiting period before a local news outlet could sell to an out-of-state company. Under the proposed bill, HB 51, local news organizations would be required to notify employees, the Maryland Department of Labor, and the local county government. This policy mirrors a similar law passed in Illinois in 2024, crafted by Rebuild Local News; founder Steve Waldman endorsed the bill at a January 22 hearing before the House Economic Matters Committee. The Maryland bill will next get its second reading in the House committee.
A tax credit for small businesses that advertise with local news was introduced in 2023 by six legislators, led by Del. Joe Vogel (D-Rockville). HB0540 would have provided a $1,000 tax credit to local businesses who advertise in qualifying local media and $500 in the subsequent years. The bill stalled after the hearing due to the calculated costs of the bill, a familiar issue with the advertising tax credit.
A growing coalition of local newsrooms in New Jersey are also in the beginning stages of pursuing a bill that would allocate a portion of government department advertising dollars to community and local news outlets in that state.
In total, the fellowship has placed 18 New Mexico university graduates in local newsrooms. During the 2024 legislative session, the state committed another $200,000 to the program over the next two years. This comes after the legislature appropriated $125,000 during the 2023 legislative session, a measure that won bipartisan support from the Senate Tax, Business and Transportation committee. The funds have helped the New Mexico Fund for Local News add more fellows to the program.
Two news labor subsidy bills introduced by New Mexico Senator and Democratic Floor Leader Peter Wirth failed to make it out of the legislature before the end of the state’s 2025 session.
SB 110 was a refundable local journalist employment tax credit similar to previous employment credits passed in New York and Illinois. It proposed up to $4 million in new annual labor subsidies through 2030 to subsidize as many as 266 New Mexico local journalists per year. SB 110 would have credited up to $15,000 per journalist (30% of a journalist’s wage, capped at $50,000) on a first-come, first-serve basis.
SB 111 was a similar tax credit, creating up to $1 million in new annual support for New Mexico news printers who have been operating in the state for the past five years. The bill would have granted $10,000 per printing employee who works more than 20 hours weekly and $5,000 per printing employee who works less than 20 hours weekly.
In May 2024, the state included the Newspaper and Broadcast Media Jobs Program in the budget, allocating $90 million over three years to New York newsrooms based on the number of employees and their compensation. The program will undergo a regulatory process this summer where stakeholders can weigh in on how it will be implemented. The bill went into effect on January 1, 2025.
In January 2025, New York Senator Monica Martinez (D-Brentwood) introduced the Lift Our Communities Advertise Local (LOCAL) bill, S1865, that would provide tax credits for small businesses – especially women-owned, minority-owned, and disabled veteran-owned businesses that advertise in local news. The tax credit provides up to $10 million a year for eligible businesses to claim a credit equaling eighty percent of their local media advertising expenditures up to $5,000. Rebuild Local News Coalition endorses the legislation.
A group of lawmakers in Oregon proposed legislation in 2023 that would have included an allocation to the Agora Journalism Center at the University of Oregon along with the Fund for Oregon Rural Journalism (FORJ). Originally the bill also included a tax credit for people to subscribe or donate to local news outlets, but lead sponsor Rep. Khanh Pham (D-Southeast Portland), said during a hearing that the subscription tax credit would be struck from the bill. If passed, the Agora Journalism Center would have used the allocation to study Oregon’s information needs and public policies that would best address them. Additionally, the amended bill would also have funded the Fund for Oregon Rural Journalism and Agora to create a local journalism resource center to help fill urgent newsroom needs around the state. The bill failed in the 2023 session, but advocates remain interested in pursuing public policy to support local news in upcoming sessions.
The Washington State Legislature passed a decade-long policy in 2024 that completely waives the business and occupations tax for newspaper publishers. It would also include eligible digital news outlets if they had a printed publication as recently as Jan. 1, 2008. The Senate bill was sponsored by Senator Mark Mullet (D-Issaquah), and the House companion bill by Rep. Gerry Pollet (D-Seattle). It passed the Washington Senate 47-1 and, more recently, passed out of the House of Representatives 89-7. Governor Jay Inslee signed the bill into law; it went into effect in January 2024.
Washington’s legislature approved $2.4 million over two years to support 8 journalists a year, paid $55,000 each, through a fellowship program to be run by Washington State University. Half of the fellows will be graduates of the University. The first six journalists began reporting in April 2024.
WAMU announced it would be closing its digital news website DCist on Feb. 23 and laid off 16 members of its staff (official press releases reported 15 staffers were let go, but reports from laid-off workers say there were 16 staffers). Amid the closure, 10 of the D.C.’s 13 Councilmembers tweeted support for local news with Councilmembers Lewis George and Brianne Nadeau highlighting the importance of passing the Local News Funding Act amid continued cuts to local news staffs across the District.
Meanwhile, a group of Democrats introduced a package of policies, including a fellowship program, a subscription tax credit and a local journalism grant program modeled after the New Jersey Civic Information Consortium, during the 2024 session. Free Press has endorsed the package and the Wisconsin Newspaper Association has endorsed the fellowship program component of the bill.