California legislators negotiated what should have been a groundbreaking deal to get tech giants to start paying for local news benefiting their platforms.

The deal was announced just after my deadline so I’m going out on a limb here.

But it needs to be said that this should not be the template for other states, and Congress, as they consider policies to help publishers get fairly paid. That’s ultimately what’s needed to save local journalism and make it a sustainable business online.

Instead of establishing business relationships between tech platforms and publishers, so they can negotiate payments going forward, California’s proposal morphed into a temporary grant program.

The most involved tech company, Google, appears to have whittled the policy down and crafted something on its terms, similar to what it did last year in Canada.

I suppose getting something is better than nothing, especially in a state full of ambitious politicians whose campaigns are supported by tech money.

I also appreciate the work of legislators like Assemblymember Buffy Wicks, sponsor of the California Journalism Preservation Act.

Wicks and others risked their jobs standing up to powerful hometown companies to help save local journalism.

Her announcement quoted Gov. Gavin Newsom saying the deal is “a major breakthrough in ensuring the survival of newsrooms and bolstering local journalism across California.”

Wicks was more subdued. The deal “represents a cross-sector commitment to supporting a free and vibrant press, empowering local news outlets up and down the state to continue in their essential work,” her quote said. “This is just the beginning. I remain committed to finding even more ways to support journalism in our state for years to come.”

Still, it’s hard not to be disappointed. California’s plan will provide a relatively small and temporary bandage, instead of the long-term cure that the CJPA and other policies aimed to provide.

One study estimated Google owes at least $10 billion a year to U.S. news publishers for the value their work adds to its products.

Under the deal, Wicks’ CJPA and state Sen. Steve Glazer’s proposed “data extraction transaction” tax are scrapped.

In return for getting off the hook, Google is donating at least $130 million, according to an Aug. 19 draft.

That includes $15 million in the first year, and $10 million the next four, for a new nonprofit at the University of California, Berkeley. The nonprofit will distribute funds to news outlets on a per-head basis.

Google also committed to spending $10 million a year on its existing journalism grant programs, and providing $5 million for a program to help news organizations use AI technology.

The state will contribute $70 million over five years and support the AI business development program.

Altogether nearly $250 million is provided over five years. But the framework indicates Google will pay just $55 million to the fund for news outlets, beyond its existing grant program and an AI program from which it should benefit.

Google and other platforms would also avoid having to negotiate deals with news organizations. That would have affirmed the value of their work and established payment arrangements that could be renewed and extended.

Matt Pearce, Media Guild of the West president, also said it’s a poor outcome.

“The California legislature embarked on an antimonopoly expedition to pass the most ambitious plan to fund local journalism since the creation of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting,” he said via email, “but now we’re looking at an unenforceable public-private partnership where taxpayers are more on the hook for funding local newsrooms than a literal monopoly whose own contributions appear to be tax-deductible.”

For comparison, the policy Canada passed last year requires Google to pay around $74 million per year into a fund for publishers.

Canada’s population is roughly the size of California’s and California’s market is more important to the tech companies.

Canada expected platforms to pay more. But they used threats, lobbying and division sowed within the news industry to get their way.

That approach also helped weaken an Australian policy in 2021, but it still required platforms to negotiate payment with news organizations or face strict oversight.

Google appears to learn from each country and state how to further weaken policies proposed to help save local journalism.

It went further in Canada by working the policy implementation in its favor. The company shaped the nonprofit distributing funds to publishers. It’s stacked with allies, including people who opposed the legislation.

Each time Google gets a little more. It keeps pushing these policies farther from their original goal, which was to force tech giants to negotiate content deals with smaller publishers.

Meanwhile Google has made content deals with some of the largest publishers, paying hundreds of millions to the likes of The New York Times. So it knows professional news brings value to its platforms.

Barring strong policy, smaller outlets providing nearly all the local journalism informing U.S. voters don’t get that opportunity. They are left vying for grants as their work is posted, consumed and shared on the platforms, which hasn’t slowed the rate of failure for traditional outlets or digital news startups.

Don’t forget these policies were a response to unfair competition online.

Google is now a convicted monopolist, for abusing its dominance of search and text ads, and is soon facing trial over its dominance of digital advertising technology.

Policymakers were also informed by experiences in Europe, particularly France. There Google broke promises to pay publishers and was fined more than $500 million in 2021 and $272 million in March.

I guess that’s the price of doing business a certain way, and Google’s getting a comparatively sweet deal in its home state.

This is excerpted from the free, weekly Voices for a Free Press newsletter. Sign up to receive it at the Save the Free Press website, st.news/SavetheFreePress. Seattle Times’ Brier Dudley is the editor of the Free Press Initiative, which aims to inform the public about issues facing newspapers, local news coverage, and a free press. You can learn more about the Free Press Initiative, or sign up for a newsletter, at https://company.seattletimes.com/save-the-free-press/.