Editorial: JCPA can stop Big Tech from playing games with the news

For some people, all they know of monopoly comes from the classic board game.

If that’s where you learned about the practice of owning and controlling not just a business but also an industry, you might have come away with the idea that monopolies are a good thing. Own all the railroads or utilities, or all the hotels on Park Place and Boardwalk, and you are in good shape as other players land on your property and fork over their cash.

But the game teaches exactly what the downside is, too. The other players — businesses that do not possess the size and power — are crushed out. You win by forcing out the competition and absorbing their business.

The problem with Monopoly is that it only teaches about what happens to the business owners. It doesn’t say anything about what is best for the customers or community.

The law does that. We have regulations in place to prevent monopolies, because competition is better for the people. It gives them choice. It encourages innovation. It also keeps businesses honest about the quality of the product.

The Journalism Competition and Preservation Act will allow that for news publishers.

The bill, first introduced in 2019, is about finding a way for creators of news content — whether physical or digital — to negotiate as a group for the terms under which an online entity would use and distribute the producer’s work and what the cost would be.

It comes after years of massive platforms becoming major purveyors of news they aggregate without creating or compensating. Meanwhile, huge swaths of the country are suffering a dire lack of local news as more small and independent papers wither and die.

There is also the fact that while companies like Google and Facebook have proven to be efficient paper boys, they are bad editors. The bill could help curb this by placing the news agencies doing the reporting, writing and research in a more equal position when it comes to negotiating. That is better for everyone who consumes news.

The JCPA would take nothing away from Big Tech. It would only create a means for newspapers and other content producers to do business with the online giants in good faith.

Bipartisan members of the U.S. Senate and House judiciary committees have introduced revised versions of the bill and plan to take up the issue in September.

They should do so and get the proposal in front of their full chambers as quickly as possible. It needs to happen, not so that one side or the other can win the game and declare victory, but because of the critical importance of local news in people’s lives every day.

News should never be a monopoly, and without the JCPA, it is in danger of becoming one.