Policy Menu

Provides refundable tax credits to small businesses that buy advertisements or sponsorships with local new organizations.  Under the federal version, a small business that purchased $6,000 in advertising would get a $3,000 refundable tax credit.

Examples: Wisconsin, Colorado, Maryland, Federal Community News and Small Business Support Act

Pros: Decisions about who benefits would be made by businesses, not government officials. Bipartisan support.

Cons: Small businesses will pick the news outlets that they think will deliver on their marketing goals best, which means the benefits could be unevenly distributed in a community.

One is a “Local News Dollars” model, where each resident is given a publicly funded credit to allocate to a local news outlet of their choice through a government portal. Inspired by Seattle’s Democracy Vouchers program, this approach gives control to consumers rather than government officials. It’s politically appealing and scalable at the city or state level.

Example: Local News Funding Act in Washington, D.C.

Pros: Encourages reader revenue, boosts civic engagement, and avoids direct government selection of outlets.

Cons: Requires administrative infrastructure to vet and track eligible outlets. Without a resident co-pay, it could be vulnerable to coordinated political misuse.

The other approach is a subscriber or donor tax credit to consumers who subscribe or donate to a local newsroom.

Examples: Massachusetts bill, federal LJSA

Pros: Encourages direct financial support to local outlets, like the voucher model.

Cons: Benefits may disproportionately go to wealthier individuals who itemize or already subscribe, limiting its reach to new readers.

Provide funds for public university journalism schools or associated nonprofits, such as Report for America, to provide fellowships for recent graduates placed in local newsrooms.

Examples:  California, New Mexico, Washington, Illinois

Pros: Direct help to shore up journalism jobs throughout the state. Picks newsrooms rather than reporting projects, which helps make it more First Amendment friendly.

Cons: May not encourage business model sustainability. Involves state government body deciding who gets the fellows.

Have a nonprofit group – funded and chartered by the government but operationally independent – provide individual  grants to local news outlets.

Examples: New Jersey

Pros: Can more precisely target aid toward news deserts and underserved communities. Can also incentivize local philanthropy to increase their support of local news outlets.

Cons: Involves a government-chartered body making subjective judgments about what projects are most worthwhile. If not carefully constructed, could lead to political favoritism, perceptions of bias and erosion of trust.

Provide state funds to double-match the matches already provided by Newsmatch, which provides a dollar for dollar match for nonprofit local news organizations that raise money from their communities. That would mean that each dollar contributed by a local resident would be matched and trigger two other dollars to be donated.

Use cases: There is already infrastructure for Newsmatch, this would just augment what already exists.

Pros: Piggybacks on an already established, well-respected mechanism. Few subjective content judgments.

Cons: Newsmatch rewards newsrooms that already have some fundraising capacity.

Create an institution to provide low-interest, no-interest or loan-to-grant support for local news organizations, especially to fund efforts to become financially sustainable.  (“Loan to grant” means that the preferred offering is a loan but under some circumstances the bank, funded by foundations and philanthropists, can turn it into a grant). Could be used for replantings, conversions or startups, for nonprofits or locally-based for-profits. Rebuild Local News has outlined how newsrooms could benefit from new lending approaches.

Pro: Encourages sustainability and local control.

Cons: If organizations don’t develop sound revenue models, they won’t be able to pay back the loan.

Provide a refundable local news employment tax credit for newsrooms to help subsidize the cost of local reporters. Federal version would have provided $25,000 per editorial employee in the first year, $15,000 for the next four years.

Examples: Federal Community News & Small Business Support Act, New York, Illinois, New Mexico

Pros: Significant direct support to newsrooms, but targeted toward the heart of the problem  — falling rates of newsroom employment.

Cons: Involves a degree of government oversight in some edge-case decisions about what counts as an eligible news outlet and could subsidize “pink slime” newsrooms that have local reporters.

Requires governments to target some of their advertising spending toward local media, instead of, say, social media or national media.

Examples: New York City, Chicago, Connecticut, San Francisco

Pros: Involves no new spending (a plus in tight budgetary times).

Cons: News organizations must prove that advertising with their outlets will be as effective as the advertising strategies previously used by the government. If poorly constructed, it can provide elected officials with a dangerous ability to reward and punish local press.

The federal government is pouring more than $100 billion for expanding broadband. Much of this goes through states. We have argued that some  broadband “digital equity” funds should go to local news organizations to improve their digital presence in preparation for a more online audience and also improve local coverage — especially to help address the information needs of “double deserts,” which are areas that are both un- or under-served by broadband and local news.

So far, Rebuild Local News has submitted letters to about a half dozen state broadband and digital equity authorities, encouraging them to include local news outlets in their digital equity plans.

Provides tax incentives or grants to community institutions to either maintain or restore local ownership of newspapers. In addition, there should be a 120-day waiting period when a newspaper is sold to an out of state company, to give time for communities to prepare acquisition bids. Benefits could either restore a chain-owned newspaper to local ownership or incentivize family owned operations to sell to local organizations

Example: Illinois, California, Connecticut, Maryland

Pros: Helps keep local papers in local hands. May prevent further consolidation.

Cons: Affects a relatively small number of publications. May also require incentives for the chains to sell.

Provide forgiveness for the student loans of journalists working in local news.

Use cases: The federal government already has student loan forgiveness for certain kinds of federal service — this program would simply scale that policy to make local journalism jobs more accessible.

Pros: Could help journalists stay in local journalism jobs, some of which tend to be lower paying, longer, and make it easier for people from non-wealthy backgrounds to remain as in the field.

Cons:  If it applies to all local reporters (and not just those working at nonprofit organizations), it would require a massive government effort to define who was eligible.