New Jersey Senate Committee Advances State Advertising Set-Aside for Local Newsrooms

On June 11, Rebuild Local News Policy Manager Lori Henson testified before the New Jersey Senate State Government Wagering, Tourism & Historic Preservation Committee in support of S3744, a bill that would require state agencies to publicly report their advertising spend and ensure that 30 percent of those dollars go to local news. The Republican and Democratic committee members passed the bill unanimously.

The full Senate is expected to vote on S3744 in the coming weeks.

Chair Beach, Vice Chair McKeon, and distinguished members of the Committee:

My name is Lori Henson and I am a policy manager with Rebuild Local News. We are the leading nonpartisan nonprofit coalition representing 3,000 newsrooms and more than 15,000 journalists. We develop and advocate for effective public policies designed to strengthen community news and information. In that role, I ask you to advance Senate Bill 3744, which requires government agencies to set aside 30% of their discretionary advertising spending for local news outlets.

This bill takes a unique – and budget-neutral – approach to revitalizing local news. It would reinvest government agency advertising dollars into New Jersey communities through the local newspapers, digital sites, broadcast and public media that New Jersey audiences most trust – many of which are also small businesses.

This is a “buy local” policy that strikes a balance between spending state money with New Jersey local news and maintaining access for state marketing professionals to the full range of media advertising tools, from outdoor advertising to the search and social adtech tools of Google and Meta. This policy does not restrict the types of media tools available for state marketing campaigns, nor does it dictate any specific local news outlets for the state to place advertising. In fact, this policy requires local news outlets to compete for state advertising by providing industry standard analytics, audience demographic data, and up-to-date media kits.

Setting aside a portion of state advertising for community media is an innovative and smart policy approach that will ultimately allow New Jersey’s local news organizations to deepen and expand coverage of essential civic and community life across the state. A similar municipal-level advertising set-aside approach is already showing substantial results for community and ethnic news outlets in New York City. In its first five years, the policy has directed more than $72 million to local outlets in the city. Small publishers including the Haitian Times have been able to add staff and improve news coverage because of the additional revenue. The policy has, in many cases, allowed the city to better reach hard-to-reach audiences. The policy has also diversified the range of news outlets receiving advertising, with dozens of outlets receiving city ads for the first time.

New Jersey would lead the nation with a statewide government advertising set-aside approach; Senate Bill 3744 would be the first bill of its kind to be implemented at the state level. With a government advertising set-aside, state agencies must spend their advertising dollars strategically. It is equally important to explain what the bill does not do.

Senate Bill 3744 does not require an increase in spending on government advertising. Research shows audiences consider local news sources to be the most connected and personally relevant to their lives. The same research finds that local news audiences are more likely than with non-local media to take meaningful action such as signing up for a newsletter, sharing a story, posting a comment, or signing up for additional communications – all forms of engagement especially relevant to government messaging.

The bill also does not impact how agencies advertise their messages – the content of government advertisements remains determined entirely by the state agencies in collaboration with their marketing and advertising professionals, and those contracted through the familiar procurement process.

Local news outlets need this innovative policy support now. Senate Bill 3744 is a response to the crisis faced by local news organizations and the communities they serve. A recent study by Rebuild Local News and Muck Rack found that New Jersey local news outlets are struggling to cover local communities, ranking last among the states in the number of local journalists per 100,000 people. According to the Medill Local News Initiative, in the decade between 2013 and 2023, New Jersey lost more than half of its journalists – over 3,600 newsroom jobs.

Research shows that when a local news outlet closes, communities face higher borrowing costs, lower voter turnout, fewer choices of candidates on the ballot, more government waste and corruption and more corporate crime. Local news benefits communities in countless ways. Senate Bill 3744 is a smart and tested approach to supporting New Jersey’s local news outlets.

I urge the Committee to advance the bill, not just for New Jersey local news outlets, but for the health of New Jersey communities.

Sincerely,
Lori Henson
Policy Manager
Rebuild Local News