The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) has conducted an assessment of the Journalism Competition and Preservation Act (JCPA), a bill pushed by lobbyists for the legacy corporate media that would allow the industry to form a cartel to pressure tech companies for financial handouts and other favors. The assessment is a sure sign that legacy media’s friends in Congress are refusing to accept defeat.
Despite multiple failed attempts to pass the bill, including an abortive effort to attach it to the annual defense spending bill at the end of 2022, media lobbyists and their allies in Congress including Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) have repeatedly brought it back from the dead.
The bill would allow companies owned by the nation’s largest media conglomerates to form a cartel to secure deeper levels of collusion with Big Tech. The cartel could force tech companies, through arbitration, to funnel massive amounts of ad revenue to media companies owned by the likes of Hearst and Gannett — giant corporations with billions of dollars in revenue.
In other words, the bill is corporate welfare for the same fake news media that pushed hoaxes like Russiagate on the American people, ignored the Hunter Biden laptop story, and created the narrative that peaceful Trump supporters are “insurrectionists.”
Following the passage of a similar bill in Canada, Facebook and Google blocked news links across the country, with little impact on their own traffic or usage. When it looked like the JCPA might pass through the defense bill in 2021, Facebook said it may have to do the same in the U.S.
The Speaker of the House, Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-CA), has said that despite Democrat efforts, the JCPA is “dead in the House.”
The bill has numerous other Republican opponents, including Sens. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN), Tom Cotton (R-AR), Steve Daines (R-MT), Marco Rubio (R-FL), Mike Lee (R-UT), Mike Braun (R-IN), Katie Britt (R-AL), and Reps. Jim Jordan (R-OH), Steve Scalise (R-LA), and Ben Cline (R-VA).
The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) conducts financial assessments of bills in response to requests from members of congress. CBO review is a necessary step in the process of making a bill law, and is meant to assess the financial impact that a bill will have on states, regulatory bodies, and private sector entities.
While the CBO prioritizes requests from leadership, it is unclear who requested this review. What it does indicate is that the legacy media lobby has friends in congress who refuse to let this media bailout bill die.
Allum Bokhari is the senior technology correspondent at Breitbart News. He is the author of #DELETED: Big Tech’s Battle to Erase the Trump Movement and Steal The Election. Follow him on Twitter @AllumBokhari.