State Activity Tracker

Gov. Gavin Newsom did not include any funding for local media programs 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 October 2025, California Gov. Gavin 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, and created the Civic Media Program, which would provide grants to local news organizations. GO-Biz Director Dee Dee Myers (or her successor) has not yet chosen how funds will be distributed, but the state on Feb. 3, 2026, gave notice of its intent to award The James B. McClatchy Foundation with responsibility for administering the grants. GO-Biz will also appoint a nine-person news industry advisory board.

The Civic Media Fund 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 will support a two-year cohort of reporting fellows to continue the program through 2028. The program 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 has been 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.

The state introduced a handful of local news bills in 2025, which did not pass. SB1230 was introduced by State Rep. Kate Farrar (D-West Hartford, Newington). It called for a government advertising set-aside of 50 percent of some state agency ad budgets for local news outlets owned by in-state entities. Farrar introduced a similar bill in 2023 and 2024 – a state-level version of a policy implemented in New York in 2020 that mandates a certain proportion of government advertising spending go to local news outlets. It would have limited the benefits to publications owned and operated in the state of Connecticut. After passing the joint Government Administration and Elections Committee, the bill has failed to get called for a floor vote each session.

Rebuild Local News partnered with independent news organizations in Connecticut to once again advance the policy. Other local news bills introduced by Rep. Farrar in Connecticut in 2025 included HB5878, a refundable employment tax credit for news organizations. It would have established 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. The bill met strong Republican opposition in the Finance committee and did not advance.

Other bills introduced in the 2025 session included 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; the bill passed the Labor committee, but did not get called for a floor vote. Another bill, HB6076, would have established and fund at least twelve fellowship positions in local newsrooms for recent graduates of journalism programs at public institutions of higher education. The bill passed out of the Higher Education Committee, but did not get called for a floor vote.

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.

HB1458, introduced in 2025 by Representative Ikaika Hussey (D), proposes taxing ad revenue earned in Hawaii by large social media platforms that have over one million users in the U.S. The funds would be used to expand broadband access and support local journalism. The bill did not advance out of committee in 2025 but was held over and is set to be heard by the House Economic Development & Technology committee on Feb 11, 2026.

As of December 9, 2025, Illinois has awarded more than $4 million in credits through the Local Journalism Sustainability Tax Incentive Program, approving 55 outlets in the program’s first year while denying 11 applications and leaving six pending. Recipients include major legacy outlets, small community papers, digital start-ups, and public broadcasters, with most funding going to organizations outside the Chicago metro area and 30 percent going to nonprofit outlets. Applications for the program’s second year of funding opened on Feb. 1, 2026. The program was created in May 2024, when the Illinois Legislature established a refundable employment tax credit to support local news, committing $25 million over five years for newsrooms hiring or retaining local reporters. The incentive is available to for-profit and nonprofit organizations with at least one full-time local reporter and provides $15,000 per current reporter and $10,000 per new hire. A single newsroom may receive up to $150,000, with a $250,000 cap for any given corporation.

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 also 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 Senator 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 January 2026, Del. Linda Foley (D-Montgomery) introduced HB43, which would require state agencies to spend half of their advertising budgets with local news outlets. The bill had its first reading in the House Government, Labor and Elections Committee on Jan. 14 and its next hearing is scheduled for Feb. 10. HB43 is based on a similar bill, HB1119, that Del. Foley introduced in 2025 but failed to advance by the end of the session.

A refundable journalist employment tax credit, HB0891, similar to those enacted in New York and Illinois, was introduced by Delegates Vogel and Foley in 2025. 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 did not advance and was not reintroduced in 2026.

A local news bill introduced by Delegate Mary Lehman in 2025 would have created 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. The bill failed to advance out of the House Committee on Economic Matters.

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 did not pass.

State agencies published their first advertising spending information on Feb. 1, 2026, to comply with government advertising transparency requirements that were part of the 2025 omnibus budget. The data from more than a dozen state departments shows that those agencies spend an average of 29 percent 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 percent 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.

In January 2026, Republican Rep. Kristine Perez of Londonderry introduced HB1420 to help small businesses that advertise with local news. The House Ways and Means Committee heard testimony on the bill on Jan. 21 and assigned the bill to a study subcommittee that met Feb. 9. HB1420 would provide a tax credit covering 80 percent of advertising costs, up to $3,000, for restaurants, hardware stores and other small businesses that advertise in local news outlets.

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.

A coalition of local publishers and Montclair State University’s Center for Cooperative Media aims to get a bill introduced in January 2026 that requires state agencies to spend 30 percent of their advertising budgets with community and ethnic news outlets.

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.

Co-sponsors Sens. Peter Wirth and Carrie Hamblen reintroduced a refundable tax credit in 2026 that would subsidize 30 percent of wages at commercial and nonprofit local newsrooms. SB120 is capped at $4 million annually for New Mexico newsrooms. The bill is being considered by the Senate Tax, Business and Transportation Committee, which is chaired by Sen. Hamblen. A previous version of the bill in 2025, SB110, nearly made it into an omnibus tax package but ultimately did not pass.

New Mexico’s 2025-2026 state budget will direct $350,000 to the University of Mexico for an expanded fellowship and internship program and for the launch of a high school journalism support program, according to Rashad Mahmood, executive director at New Mexico Local News Fund, which has operated the state’s local news fellowship since 2019. Another $150,000 will be allocated to support community journalism programs based at community colleges.

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.

The Newspaper and Broadcast Media Jobs Program, which passed in 2024 and went into effect on January 1, 2025, allocated $90 million in tax credits over three years to New York-based commercial newsrooms to subsidize employee wages. The Empire State Development Agency proposed regulations for the program in 2025 and reports that “information on the formal application process will be forthcoming with an anticipated opening date in February 2026.” The program will undergo a regulatory process this summer where stakeholders can weigh in on how it will be implemented.

A 2025 proposal from Rebuild Local News to include nonprofit news organizations in the Newspaper and Broadcast Media Jobs Program passed the State Senate but did not advance in the Assembly. Advocates are considering next steps for 2026.

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, which could fund journalist employment subsidies and a new grantmaking Civic Information Consortium housed by the University of Oregon. SB1580 is set for a Feb. 11, 2025 hearing at the Senate Committee On Commerce and General Government. The bill has limited time to be considered in this year’s short session, which only lasts 35 days. The 2025 version of the bill, titled SB 686, was a close derivative of the California Journalism Preservation Act and narrowly failed to pass in 15–14 vote on June 24, 2025, following intense opposition from Google and Meta.

As an alternative to passing Sen. Pham’s SB686 in 2025, Republicans in the Senate minority counter-proposed a publicly funded $50 per-person tax credit program to offset either the cost of Oregon local news subscriptions or donations to nonprofit journalism support or transparency organizations. Nonprofit newsrooms without subscription programs appeared to have been excluded. The Republican counter-proposal was based on Senator Cedric Hayden’s SB57 introduced earlier in the 2025 session. Neither concept was seriously considered.

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.

Pennsylvania House representatives in 2026 are set to consider two local news funding bills sponsored by State Rep. Christopher Rabb (D-Philadelphia). HB2047 would create a local news fellowship program that places reporters in newsrooms across the state, managed by a public university to be selected by the governor. It would be similar to the California Local News Fellowship program at University of California, Berkeley. HB2048 would create a New Jersey-style grantmaking Civic Information Consortium. Both bills advanced out of the House Communications & Technology Committee on Feb. 4, 2026 on party-line 14-12 votes, with Democrats supporting and Republicans opposed.

Washington’s SB 5400, introduced by Sen. Marko Liias in 2025, would put a tax surcharge on search engine and social media companies, capped at $6 million per company, to generate funding for a state-managed journalism employment grant program. The bill was held over for consideration in 2026 in the Senate Ways and Means committee after advancing out of the Senate Committee on Labor & Commerce in 2025.

The Washington State Legislature enacted a decade-long policy in 2024 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.

Washington’s legislature approved $2.4 million over two years in 2023 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.

Fourteen Republicans and two Democrats introduced AB762 in 2021, 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.

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.

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.