State Activity Tracker

On Feb. 19, 2026, Assemblymember Chris Ward (D-San Diego), with the backing of Rebuild Local News, introduced AB 2222 with placeholder text declaring his intentions to pursue a journalist employment tax credit. Full language detailing the proposal is expected to be published in March 2026.

In early 2026, California local news advocates mobilized to press lawmakers to continue funding for existing local news programs after Gov. Gavin Newsom did not include any funding in his January budget proposal for 2026-2027. Existing programs funded through the state budget include the California Local News Fellowship at UC Berkeley and the upcoming California Civic Media Program administered by California GO-Biz, which was originally struck as a five-year deal with Google but now has only been funded for one year. The legislature will pass a budget by June 2026.

In Spring 2026, California GO-Biz Director Dee Dee Myers is expected to decide on distribution criteria for the Civic Media Program to support local news organizations, which was created in October 2025 when Gov. Newsom approved Assemblymember Buffy Wicks’ $20 million news funding partnership with Google. The bill passed on a strict party-line vote, with Democrats supporting it and Republicans opposed. The administration on Feb. 3, 2026, gave notice of its intent to award The James B. McClatchy Foundation with responsibility for administering the grants. GO-Biz has also appointed a nine-person news industry advisory board to consult on the program.

The Civic Media Program comes from a 2024 agreement with Google that led to the shelving of two key bills: Wicks’ AB 886, known as the California Journalism Preservation Act, which sought to secure funding for local news through tech platform agreements or arbitration, and Sen. Steven Glazer’s SB 1327, which aimed to levy a fee on digital ad revenues from major tech companies.

In June 2025, Governor Gavin Newsom signed a package of bills that includes $15 million in expanded funding for the landmark California Local News Fellowship Program hosted by UC Berkeley, which places journalists in newsrooms around the state. The new funding supports a two-year cohort of reporting fellows to continue the program through 2028, plus support for the Maynard Institute’s Propel Initiative in collaboration with California Black Media, the Latino Media Collaborative and American Community Media. The fellowship was created in 2022 by Sen. Glazer with a $25 million allocation to UC Berkeley’s journalism school to fund at least 40 fellows in local newsrooms across the state.

AB 611, introduced by Assemblymember Alex Lee (D–San Jose) in 2025, would have required a 120-day notice before the sale of a local newsroom to a hedge fund, private equity firm or publicly traded company. The bill, sponsored by California Common Cause and supported by Rebuild Local News, was inspired by Illinois’ landmark sale-notice law. After passing the Assembly 41–14, the bill was held over in the Senate Judiciary committee until 2026.

As of July 2025, California state agencies are required to create plans to expand spending on ethnic and community media advertising after Gov. Newsom signed AB 1511, sponsored by Assemblymember Miguel Santiago (D-Los Angeles). The agencies are required to report on their progress in September 2026.

In March 2023, the San Francisco board of supervisors approved a resolution that will mandate city departments disclose how they spend their advertising budgets in addition to encouraging departments to spend at least 50% of their advertising dollars with community, ethnic and hyperlocal outlets. The provision comes just short of a mandate, but outlines strong and detailed transparency requirements. San Francisco State University has also stepped in to help implement this provision, ensuring that local news outlets get registered as city contractors and studying the level and result of city advertising spend.

Colorado state legislators proposed a tax credit for small businesses to advertise in local news in 2022, based on the Local Journalism Sustainability Act in 2022. It drew support not only from journalism groups but from the League of Women Voters of Colorado. It passed the House Business Affairs and Labor committee as well as the Finance Committee but failed to pass the House Appropriations Committee.

In February 2026, the Connecticut General Assembly’s Higher Education and Employment Advancement Committee passed HB5159 with bipartisan support to create a journalism fellowship program placing recent graduates into local newsrooms. The bill would fund at least 12 annual fellowships operated in partnership with a Connecticut nonprofit organization. Senior Policy Manager Gene Perry testified in support.

The General Assembly Finance Committee is developing language for a journalist employment tax credit, with a hearing expected on the bill, HB 5137, in spring 2026.

In 2025, lawmakers introduced a slate of local news bills that ultimately did not advance, including Rep. Kate Farrar’s proposal to direct 50 percent of state agency advertising to in‑state news outlets. Farrar had pursued similar legislation in prior sessions, and although the measure cleared committee, it never reached a floor vote. She also introduced a refundable employment tax credit for in‑state news organizations, which met strong Republican opposition in the Finance Committee. Other proposals that session included HB6418, requiring 120 days’ notice before the sale of a news organization to an out‑of‑state buyer, and HB6076, which would have funded at least twelve fellowship positions for recent journalism graduates. Both bills passed their respective committees but were not called for floor votes.

The Record Journal in Meriden, Connecticut got approved for a $300,000 American Rescue Plan-funded advertising grant program. Local businesses and nonprofits applied to participate in the program. Those selected received $4,000 in free advertising, $2,000 of which was paid for with city American Rescue Plan funds and another $2,000 in advertising was supplied by the Record Journal. After the costs of implementing the program, the publication netted $235,000. American Rescue Plan funds are still available until the end of 2024. To learn how you can adapt the program, read Rebuild Local News’ bulletin.

In February 2026, Hawai‘i’s House Economic Development & Technology Committee approved HB1458, legislation taxing major social media platforms’ advertising revenue to fund broadband access and local news. Policy Director Matt Pearce testified in support, and the bill now moves to the House Consumer Protection & Commerce Committee. The measure was originally introduced in 2025 by Rep. Ikaika Hussey but did not advance that session and was held over, leading to its renewed consideration this year.

In February 2026, Republican Rep. and Asst. Minority Leader Amy Elik (R-Alton) introduced HB4869, a proposal to provide tax credits to small businesses that advertise with local news organizations. It would provide $3 million annually over five taxable years for tax credits, with businesses able to earn up to $2,500.

On Feb. 1, 2026, Illinois opened applications for the second year of its Local Journalism Sustainability Tax Incentive Program, which provides refundable employment tax credits to help newsrooms retain and hire reporters. In its first year, in 2025, the program awarded $4 million in credits, supporting more than 260 journalist jobs across over 120 outlets statewide, with most funding going to organizations outside the Chicago metro area and 30 percent to nonprofit outlets. Enacted in 2024, the program commits $25 million over five years and offers $15,000 per current reporter and $10,000 per new hire, with caps of $150,000 per newsroom and $250,000 per corporation. Rebuild Local News published a policy paper highlighting what’s working well and where implementation can improve.

In 2025, Gov. JB Pritzker signed Sen. Steve Stadelman’s SB213, requiring state agencies to disclose how they spend their advertising budgets, which outlets receive those funds, and to post that information on their websites each year. The first annual report on government advertising spending is due in October 2026.

In 2025, Sen. Stadelman reintroduced his Journalism Preservation Act, SB 1732, a “bargaining code” bill aimed at forcing Google and Meta to pay local newsrooms for their journalism, closely modeled on California’s similarly named legislation from 2023-2024. The bill did not advance.

The Strengthening Community Media law was enacted in 2024, requiring a 120-day notice to employees and the community before a local news organization can be sold to any company. The notice law has seen two tests so far. First, Better Newspapers, Inc., did not appear to give notice before selling several local titles to Paxton Media Group in 2025, raising questions about how the statute is to be enforced if not followed. More recently, Paddock Publications gave a 120-day notice on Jan. 6, 2026 of its intent to sell the Daily Herald, but did not disclose the name of the potential buyer.

The Strengthening Community Media law also created the groundwork for a scholarship program for journalists from Illinois colleges who pledge to work in state newsrooms. However, the program has not been funded, and Sen. Stadelman is expected to continue efforts to do so in 2026.

Local journalism advocates won an executive order in October 2022 establishing an advertising set-aside that allocates 50 percent of Chicago’s government advertising spending for community and ethnic news outlets. After then-Mayor Lori Lightfoot left office, the implementation of the order stalled. Today, the Chicago Independent Media Alliance, a coalition of publishers, and civic nonprofit Public Narrative are working with Mayor Brandon Johnson, other city leaders, and city agencies to implement the policy.

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 city advertising efforts, including publishing an annual report on how city ad dollars are distributed to eligible news outlets.

HB2276, a tax subsidy supporting small businesses that advertise in local news, advanced to a hearing in the Committee on Taxation in February 2025 but did not pass. It carries over into the 2026 legislative session. In the meantime, coalition members led by the Kansas Press Association and Kansas Association of Broadcasters are exploring an advertising pilot program with the state’s Department of Commerce.

On September 26, 2025, Sen. Peggy Rotundo (D-Androscoggin), chair of the Senate Appropriations and Financial Affairs Committee, introduced the Maine Community News Act, a landmark effort to strengthen local journalism statewide. Because Maine’s 2026 session is limited to budget items with narrow exceptions, the Legislative Council declined the request to take up the bill. This is a model bill developed by Rebuild Local News, which will now be introduced in 2027 as the Maine Community News and Small Business Sustainability Act. It would offer refundable tax credits to help newsrooms hire and retain local journalists, and would apply to print, broadcast and digital outlets, both nonprofit and commercial.

In February 2026, state legislators held hearings to consider companion bills that would direct 50 percent of the state’s advertising budget to local newspapers, digital publishers and public media. Policy Manager Lori Henson testified in support of Del. Linda Foley’s HB43 before the House Government, Labor and Elections Committee and, later, for Sen. Jim Rosapepe’s companion bill, SB459. Neither committee has scheduled votes. HB43 is based on a similar bill, HB1119, that Del. Foley introduced in 2025 but failed to advance by the end of the session.

In 2025, lawmakers introduced two additional local news bills that ultimately did not advance. Delegates Joe Vogel and Foley proposed HB0891, a refundable journalist employment tax credit modeled on programs in New York and Illinois. Delegate Mary Lehman introduced HB51, which would have required a 120‑day waiting period before a local news outlet could be sold to an out‑of‑state company, with notice to employees, the Maryland Department of Labor, and local county officials.

In 2023, a group of legislators led by Del. Vogel also explored HB0540, a small‑business advertising tax credit that would have provided up to $1,000 for qualified advertising with local news outlets, though the measure did not pass.

State agencies published state advertising spending information for the first time since a transparency law passed. The data was published on state agency websites on Feb. 1, 2026, to comply with government advertising transparency requirements that were part of the 2025 omnibus budget. Rebuild Local News’ analysis of the data from more than a dozen state departments shows that those agencies spend an average of 29% of their ad dollars with local news outlets. The transparency language was initially part of a government advertising set-aside bill, SF2600, that required state agencies to direct 50% of their advertising budgets to local news. The language in the omnibus budget was softened to “encourage” government agencies to advertise with local news “when practicable.” Both versions required the state to annually report on the percentage of advertising placed with local news and, specifically, with local newspapers, as well as the total spend on advertising. The Minnesota Newspaper Association and Minnesota News Media Institute led the efforts to pass the transparency bill.

SB367, a statewide bill to support rural and community media, had its first hearing in March 2025 and was advanced by the Government Affairs Committee. It failed to pass the Senate Finance Committee before the session ended. The bill would have created a “Rural and Community Media Program” within the Department of Administration to help state agencies better reach historically underrepresented communities through rural and community outlets. It would have also established a local news directory, boosted transparency in government advertising, and provided training for officials on the value of investing in local media.

In January 2026, Republican Rep. Kristine Perez of Londonderry introduced HB1420 to help small businesses that advertise with local news. The bill as introduced would provide a tax credit covering 80 percent of advertising costs, up to $3,000, for small businesses that advertise in local news outlets. The House Ways and Means Committee heard testimony on the bill on Jan. 21, 2026, and formed a study committee to address concerns raised by the Department of Revenue Administration and other language changes. On March 2, 2026, Ways and Means voted to move the bill to “Interim Study” status, meaning action may resume on the bill during the fall 2026 budget process.

Companion bills were introduced in the General Assembly and Senate in March to set aside a portion of the state’s advertising budget for local news outlets. S3744 introduced by Sen. Andrew Zwicker (D – Hillsborough) and Sen. Angela McKnight (D – Jersey City) and A4677 introduced by Majority Leader Louis Greenwald (D – Voorhees) require state agencies to spend 30 percent of their advertising budgets with community and ethnic news outlets – potentially the first statewide policy to scale up the New York City advertising set-aside model pioneered by the Center for Community Media. A coalition of local publishers and Montclair State University’s Center for Cooperative Media is leading the effort to pass the policy this calendar year. The bills have not yet been assigned to committees.

New Jersey lawmakers passed a law in June 2025, effective March 1, 2026, allowing state offices to post legal notices on their own websites or digital news sites — a shift away from print that could cut into a key revenue stream for local outlets. The financial impact is uncertain: a 2016 report estimated governments spent $7.3 million annually on legal notices in newspapers, with private parties adding $24.9 million.

The New Jersey Civic Information Consortium won back $2.5 million in funding in the state budget passed in July 2025 this week after Governor Phil Murphy eliminated it in his FY2026 budget plan released in February 2025. New Jersey launched the first-of-its-kind Civic Information Consortium in 2018 to provide grants to civic information producers in the state, including newsrooms. Since then it has given out over $12 million in grants.

In February 2026, New Mexico lawmakers approved more than $20 million over five years in subsidies for local newsrooms. SB151, would provide $4 million annually in refundable employment tax credits to help newsrooms retain and hire reporters, using a model long championed by Rebuild Local News. The bill includes $1 million annually to offset wages for workers at local news printers. The state also allocated $200,000 for the New Mexico Local News Fellowship program through the Department of Workforce Solutions. Both bills now await Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham’s signature.

Since launching in 2019, the New Mexico Local News Fellowship has received steady, bipartisan support that has allowed the program to grow in size and scope each year. Recent state budgets have expanded the fellowship to include a statewide internship track, new community‑college–based journalism programs, and a high school journalism support initiative housed at the University of New Mexico. These investments have enabled the New Mexico Local News Fund to place more than 35 fellows and 27 interns in newsrooms across the state since 2020, strengthening local coverage and building a durable pipeline of early‑career reporters.

In February 2026, New York finalized regulations for the Empire State Newspaper and Broadcast Media Jobs Program and opened its application window, which closes on April 24. The program provides $30 million annually for three years in refundable tax credits to help eligible commercial newsrooms retain or hire staff. The program offers two credits: an existing Job Credit that subsidizes 50% of an eligible employee’s annual wages and a New Job Creation Credit that provides an additional $5,000 for every net new full-time employee.

Nonprofit news organizations are not currently eligible, but Rebuild Local News’ efforts to fix that gap are gaining momentum. After a 2025 proposal cleared the State Senate but did not advance in the Assembly, lawmakers have revived and expanded the idea. In February 2026, Assemblyman Jeffrey Dinowitz and Sen. Jamaal Bailey introduced bills to create a grant program mimicking the tax credits, now backed by many of the state’s leading civic groups including Common Cause, League of Women Voters, Citizens Union, PEN America, Reinvent Albany and others.

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 bill did not advance but was held over and referred to the Senate Commerce, Economic Development and Small Business Committee on Jan. 7, 2026.

In February 2025, Senator Rachel May introduced S4401, a “bargaining code” bill creating an arbitration mechanism for news publishers to seek compensation from Big Tech, primarily Google. Notably, S4401 is not locally focused and lacks many of the journalist employment, labor spending and transparency requirements of its sibling bills in California, Illinois and Oregon. The bill did not advance in 2025 and was re-referred to the Senate Consumer Protection Committee on Jan. 7, 2026, where it has not been heard.

In 2019, after appeals from the Newmark School of Journalism at the City University of New York, Mayor Bill de Blasio issued an executive order requiring that certain city agencies spend at least 50 percent of their advertising budgets with community newspapers. The policy provided more than $72 million to more than 100 local newsrooms since it launched.

In December 2025, the Center for Community Media (CCM) and URL Media published an open letter to newly elected Mayor Zohran Mamdani calling for stronger enforcement of Local Law 83 and greater independence and transparency for the Mayor’s Office of Ethnic and Community Media (MOECM). Since then, Mamdani has issued two executive orders moving MOECM under the newly created Office of Mass Engagement.

For Oregon’s 2026 short session, Sen. Khanh Pham re‑filed a version of her Big Tech “bargaining code” legislation that would require Google and Meta to pay for scraping local news, with revenue directed toward journalist employment subsidies and a new Civic Information Consortium housed at the University of Oregon. The bill, SB1580, faced strong opposition from tech advocates during a Feb. 11 hearing and did not advance out of committee.

The 2025 version of the bill, SB686, closely mirrored the California Journalism Preservation Act and narrowly failed in a 15–14 vote after intense pushback from Google and Meta. As an alternative that year, Senate Republicans proposed a publicly funded $50 per‑person tax credit to offset the cost of local news subscriptions or donations to nonprofit journalism and transparency organizations – an idea based on Sen. Cedric Hayden’s earlier SB57. Neither concept gained traction.

A group of lawmakers in Oregon, led by Sen. Pham, 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) to study Oregon’s information needs and public policies that would address them. The bill failed.

In February 2026, Rep. Chris Rabb’s HB2047, to create a local news fellowship program placing journalists with news organizations across the state, and HB2048, to establish a New Jersey‑style grantmaking Civic Information Consortium, advanced out of the House Communications & Technology Committee on 14–12 party‑line votes, with Democrats in support and Republicans opposed. Both bills were placed on hold by the House and remain inactive with no floor vote scheduled.

In March 2026, Utah lawmakers approved a groundbreaking tax on targeted advertising, SB 287, aimed at large firms with more than $100 million from targeted advertising revenue. If signed by Gov. Spencer Cox, as expected, Utah’s law would be the first in the world to explicitly connect a tech tax to supporting “civic information,” among other possible remedies to related harms to children’s wellbeing. Benefits from the program are dependent on the tax surviving expected legal challenges from Big Tech advocates and future appropriations by Utah policymakers. Rebuild Local News advocated on the bill.

The Vermont House on March 27, 2025, approved H.244, mandating 70 percent of government agency advertising budgets be spent with local news outlets. It had strong support from Republicans – including the Lieutenant Governor John Rodgers – as well as Democrats, but failed to advance in 2025. The bill sponsors, Rep. Barbara Rachelson and Rep. Chea Waters Evans, were working to attach the advertising transparency and reporting language to another bill in 2026. The Vermont Journalism Coalition is leading the effort to pass a government advertising set-aside in 2026.

In February 2026, a broad coalition of local news advocates, including Rebuild Local News, testified in support of Sen. Marko Liias’ SB5400, a proposed tax on search engines and social media companies to fund journalist employment grants. A new amendment would also allow revenue from the proposed tech tax to support Washington State University’s Murrow News Fellowship, which has partnered with Report for America to place a fellow in every Washington county by 2029. Sen. Liias has said the bill is unlikely to advance this year but will be pursued in 2027.

In 2024, the Washington State Legislature enacted a decade-long policy that waives the business and occupations tax for newspaper publishers. It would include eligible digital news outlets if they had a printed publication as recently as Jan. 1, 2008, but did not exempt digital-native publications.

In 2023, 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 were to be graduates of the University. The first six journalists began reporting in April 2024.

Ward 4 Councilmember Janeese Lewis George and Ward 1 Councilmember Brianne Nadeau reintroduced the Local News Funding Act in 2025. The bill, first introduced in 2023, would give DC residents the ability to support local newsrooms of their choice with news coupons, for a total expected subsidy of $11.6 million. The legislation was influenced by Democracy Policy Network’s Local News Dollars framework. Under the bill, every registered voter in D.C. would have received five news coupons that they can distribute to local newsrooms via a portal. The coupons don’t have an attached monetary value, but as a proportional value. After every calendar quarter, the number of news vouchers each outlet received is calculated, with newsrooms receiving a portion of available funds equivalent to the proportion of news vouchers they received.

In 2024, a group of Democrats introduced a package of policies, including a journalist fellowship program (AB 1141), a subscription tax credit (AB 1140) and a local journalism grant program modeled after the New Jersey Civic Information Consortium (SB 1042). Free Press endorsed the package and the Wisconsin Newspaper Association endorsed the fellowship bill. The bills did not advance.

In 2021, 14 Republicans and two Democrats introduced AB762, a proposal to provide a tax credit to small businesses in the state that advertised with local news outlets. The approach, based on the federal Local Journalism Sustainability Act, drew support not only from journalism groups but also associations representing restaurants, bars, and banks. The bill had a hearing in 2022, but didn’t pass. The bill was once again pursued during the 2023 legislative session, but did not become law.