This past week, I received a tremendous number of notes from readers like you expressing support for Assembly Bill 323, the Save Local Journalism Act. Interestingly, I also received comments asking why we felt newspapers should receive an exception from Assembly Bill 5, the so-called “gig law,” when many other industries are also hotly contesting that bill.
If you’ll indulge me, I’d like to comment on both points.
First, the good news. Last Monday, the California Senate voted 39-0 to pass AB323 and the Assembly concurred in a 71-4 vote to support local newspapers. AB323 passed and you — our readers — made all the difference.
The passage of AB323 is an important win for journalism. I’m deeply grateful for the many readers who recognize the value of local newspapers and lifted their voices in support of this bill.
I’m also sincerely appreciative of our elected officials who courageously stood on the side of First Amendment rights and protections for a free, independent press.
Members of the California Legislature, who overwhelmingly voted in support of AB323 on both sides of the aisle, demonstrated informed respect for the Constitution. These representatives rightly noted that a dose of common sense should be applied before undoing our Founding Fathers’ work.
While this is a win for local media, we need to ensure that the success is not short lived. AB323 passed on a compromise that newspapers have one additional year to comply with AB5, instead of the two years we requested.
That means we have a lot of work to do and not a lot of time to do it. Especially given that we, like so many California businesses, are still negatively impacted by COVID-19. We saw our advertising revenue decrease by 50 percent, and we are nowhere near recovery from that unexpected economic downturn.
Which leads to my second point.
AB323 gives local media organizations like ours additional time to work out alternate solutions, but AB5 remains a real threat to local newspapers, particularly niche community and culturally diverse publications.
We will continue to stand with our partners in the newspaper industry to advocate for fair business regulation to keep these important, unique voices part of Southern California’s media landscape.
We will continue to fight against AB5 to protect the interests of the state’s newspapers, from the smallest weekly to the largest metro daily.
The author of AB5 claims newspapers are trying to operate at the expense of low-wage workers, imposing penalties on our valued carriers in a manner amounting to servitude. This is simply not true.
The reality is that AB5 is costing California jobs. Jobs we, as a state, cannot afford to lose during this fragile time of slow economic recovery. We strongly opposed AB5 from the get-go.Our editorial board has written several pieces over the past year explaining why we feel AB5 is a bad law and we will continue to do so.
The reality is, if AB5 remains the law, it may end up costing communities their local news and is sure to cost thousands of jobs in our industry and many others.
So as we celebrate the passage of AB323, we recognize that much more work needs to be done.
We are honored to have earned your trust as an essential source for local news and appreciate your advocacy. Thank you for supporting our mission of providing excellence in local news.
Ron Hasse is president and publisher of the Southern California News Group.
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September 06, 2020 at 09:03AM
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Hasse: Assembly Bill 323 a respite for local news, but more work remains to be done - OCRegister
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