By the numbers: SB686 could cut Oregon’s news business by 50%

This column has been updated.

When in battle, Armageddon is always useful to invoke. That’s what Oregon State Senator Khanh Pham’s office has done as she has retooled her “save the news,” aiming to push it through both the Senate and the House in the waning days of this legislative session.  We expect rushed movement Monday in the Senate and then quick passage, following consideration by the House.

“The primary message is that action can’t wait — the platforms are lobbying with millions while newsrooms are preparing for ‘armageddon.’ If we can’t get this done now, more Oregon newsrooms will contract or close. 686 can’t wait,” read the office’s appeal to the bill’s supporters this week. 

To which we might suggest, be careful about creating an armageddon in fear of one that might come. That’s still the likeliest outcome if SB686 were to pass the Legislature and be signed by Gov. Tina Kotek. An unintentional, good-willed “Armageddon,” but a dagger to the heart of local news, nonetheless.  

The question any legislator who votes for the bill must answer: How will I justify to my constituents (and myself) voting, be it with all the good intentions in the world, for a law that only diminishes the news they get?

In late April, just after we launched Lookout Eugene-Springfield, I summed up the fairly immediate bad impact of this efforted goodwill: “The Legislature and Oregon’s local news support: First rule, do no harm.”

Since then, the bill first hung in the balance and has now seen a furious revival, as supporters say they have satisfied the Legislative Counsel’s concerns about it. Only courts will decide if that is true, should the bill become law, but one thing is certain. In the shorter term – which would likely last more years than months – both local news companies and their readers will experience the harm. 

In my April piece, I explained that significantly less than half of the audience of news companies comes directly to their websites and apps. We all wish that weren’t true. Many wish we could return to the days when newspaper companies were a tightly structured vertical monopoly, from reporting to editing to printing to delivery – all controlled (and well-priced!) – by a single company. That is, we’d wish that we were the surviving single company and now could just flip the digital switch and maintain that dominance.  It’s 2025, though, and that world, whose diminution I long chronicled as an industry analyst before I threw myself headlong into helping lead authentic, community-centered local news revival with Lookout, is long gone. 

Many more news readers come to news sites via Google than come directly, while Facebook/Meta still refers a significantly smaller number, as it has retreated from news. If we are assigning fault, whose fault is it? Mainly, ours. As people who want to stay informed, we have changed our behavior, using the latest phone/app/search/(and, yes)/now chat tech of the day.

Trying to resuscitate the 20th-century news world is understandable, but folly.

The newly amended bill creates a pay-to-link environment by restricting access to Oregon publishers’ journalism content by major tech platforms, unless a formal agreement is in place or an annual fee is paid. That means Google or Facebook would have to pay publishers in order for news links to appear on their platforms, whether Google News or Search, or within a Facebook feed. 

Consequently, if this bill passes, these platforms will likely turn off that access and prevent much of that content from being seen — because no news would be carried on platforms without payment. To be clear, there is nothing stopping these platforms from just not accessing Oregon-based publishers’ content. 

Oregonians have taken much pride in innovating national models, much of it around environmental issues, dating back to the ‘70s. We can hear in 686’s proponents’ voices the hope their bill will do the same, sparking other states to adopt similar legislation. But wishing and hoping run up against reality. In fact, one extrapolation figures that if Google paid what the bill asks, it would be setting itself up for having to eventually pay an additional $5.3 billion a year nationally, across 50 states. Who believes it will willingly do that?

So, if links were to stop, what would that mean by the numbers?

I checked with WordPress, the largest host for content providers in the world. WordPress’s Newspack powers 300 news websites, 80% in the U.S., and the vast majority are local news-based, including Lookout Eugene-Springfield.

Here are the latest numbers on where traffic to Newspack’s websites comes from:

Yes, 42% of news traffic comes via Google, with only 25% direct, while Facebook contributes less than 10%. Yes, Google and Facebook contribute about half of all news audiences.

What that means to news businesses – and make no mistake, they are all businesses, whether hedge-fund-controlled or non-profit-driven – is that they could have literally half the readers, with follow-on impacts on how they make the money to support their enterprises. Advertising, subscription, and even donation will all likely take significant hits. That’s the opposite intent of the legislation to be sure, and one its supporters refuse to acknowledge. Righteousness doesn’t always provide the right answer. 

Indeed, if Oregon had put this legislation into place a couple of years ago, it is far less likely that we would have decided to launch Lookout Eugene-Springfield. No matter how well planned or executed, any news start-up demands awareness, and setting up shop without a social or search inclusion would make that task far more difficult. 

To be clear, the community of Lane County – literally hundreds of locals provided the major funding for Lookout, raising more than $2 million in local money to revive robust, trustworthy news. We’re off to a great start, and this impending legislation is the one negative now confronting us. 

And to be even clearer about funding, as I have disclosed several times in writing about this issue, Google, through its Google News initiative (GNI), has not been among the funders of the Lookout Eugene-Springfield launch.  Lookout Santa Cruz received supplementary funding from GNI as we built the first Lookout. While we welcome any hands-off funding that helps rebuild local news, none of it drives our coverage or takes on issues like SB686. 

The facts in that chart are the facts that should be well-understood and discussed this week. Unintentionally, legislators, I’m sure, don’t want to do harm to such rebuilding efforts, such as Lookout, or damage to one of the long-standing prizes of Oregon journalism, Willamette Week, which, too, opposes the bill for similar reasons.

When news organizations lose more audience they lose revenue – and they retain fewer and fewer journalists, not more. Consequently, it is not only news organizations’ own finances that would take a hit; Oregonians would, too. Further, again like it or not, Google and Facebook are big parts of what we might call a still-disconnecting news ecosystem. We depend on them to know what’s happening, and we can point to one of the several unintended consequences of Canada’s own incompletely conceived laws around the platforms and news. There, residents of British Columbia saw their own awareness of raging wildfires hampered by Facebook pulling out of news because of the legislation. 

Finally, those drafting the language have walked a fine line. They’ve tried to incentivize Oregon-based reporting and have needed to keep on board the biggest national companies – including Gannett, Lee Enterprises, the new entrant cost-cutter Carpenter Media Group, Sinclair Broadcast Group and others – to win passage.

Yet, these companies have amply demonstrated they are more about harvesting the profits out of declining but still-profitable companies than investing in the future of Oregon local news. If passed and ever survived a court challenge, expect these rapacious chains to find ways to exploit the law and its intent, to increase their bottom lines, while minimizing the hiring and retention of actual working journalists.

It’s a line that’s a mirage, and it’s a bad look for Oregon progressives to be in bed with hedge-fund-driven companies that continue to diminish our civic lives. In the hurly-burly of this legislature’s final days, the sensible move is to step back, stop and begin earnest work on real, helpful alternatives (which I outlined here) for the next session.