Gov. Newsom, please sign AB 2222 – real investment in the local news Californians need

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Dear Gov. Newsom:

It’s good that the state of California will get more than a billion dollars via the recent Meta settlement and will find the best ways to use those funds for social good. There’s a flip side to the disinformation and misinformation wars of our times. And that flip side is now on your desk, Assembly Bill 2222.

By creating refundable tax credits for employing full-time and part-time journalists, the Community NEWS Act is a tonic to the digital wars on fact and truth. It would be of significant help to those in the real news media, legacy and start-up. It would help publishers pay real reporters and editors, bound by standards and ethics, to hire and retain more journalists. 

Simply, more fact, widely distributed, is the best way to push misinformation to the sidelines.

AB 2222, like most legislation, is imperfect, but it’s fair and has a good chance of actually making a real difference in what Californians across the state get to know. More of us will get reports on what is happening in our communities, in city halls and county boards, the many school districts, and in many of the corners of our cities and towns. 

As you know, the numbers are stark on local news loss: About 70% of daily journalism jobs were lost in the state over the past 20 years. Once-robust press coverage in our major cities has been reduced significantly, and many of our smaller cities and rural areas are scarcely informed these days.

Further, please consider the fact that many journalism groups that have not agreed on past legislative efforts all agree on this one. Here are just a handful of the 150 who have signed on: 

• American Community Media
• California Black Media
• California Broadcasters Association
• California Independent News Alliance
• CNPA
• CSU Journalism Department
• Freedom of the Press Foundation
• INN
• LA Press Club
• Latino Media Collaborative
• News Guild
• News Media Alliance

For me, this bill and the overall news landscape are deeply personal. I’m a native Californian who returned to the state in 1997 following a great career with now-departed Knight Ridder newspapers, and now on my seventh career in journalism. And this one has been the most rewarding.  

In 2020, I launched Lookout Santa Cruz, believing that journalists and those who believe in journalism needed to stop whining and complaining about the hedge funds that have eviscerated once-respected community news institutions. Yes, locals often had their own critiques, some right-on, some off, of their local papers, but they knew they could largely rely on those papers to cover — factually — local institutions. As those newsrooms have hollowed out, so has public understanding of basic issues, including increasingly rough budget decisions.

And in Santa Cruz, now six years in, Lookout is thriving. It’s fun to point to our 2024 Pulitzer Prize for Breaking News (covering the disastrous flooding of January 2023), but it’s the daily impact of big accountability stories and smaller know-your-city stories that makes us proud. We now reach more than half the adults in Santa Cruz County each month, and we are still growing our audience quarter by quarter. And though many have said it couldn’t be done, Lookout Santa Cruz achieved profitability on earned revenue — membership and advertising money — in 2026. We are doing a lot in the community, bringing free local access to teachers through Lookout for Teachers and expanding our convening function, with four election forums scheduled for this fall.

We’re proud of our models. We are proud of our people, a group of almost 40 now, across three generations, building a future together. 

All of this requires money and careful budgeting. We raised $2.4 million in capital initially and built from there. Absolutely pertinent to the question of AB 2222’s funding is the success of California’s Local News Fellowship program. It’s been a first ingredient in getting more news reported and to the people who need it. 

The fellowship program paid Tania Ortiz, a bilingual native from Oceanside, to join us as a full-time reporter two years ago. In those years, she set a new standard of local coverage in South County, earning trust from her sources and enabling our deeper reporting on school, pesticide, housing and Flock Safety issues, among others. And we’re immediately translating her pieces into Spanish to widen their reach. 

Now, just last week, we hired Tania as a full-time Lookout reporter, paid by us. Her work allowed us to build a larger audience, and that meant Lookout increased both related membership and advertising revenue. It’s a model that works, and we are glad to welcome our second fellow this week.

That’s the connection between the nation-leading model of the fellowship program and what AB 2222 will enable: It supports those – again, legacy, newer and digital – who really want to forge a brighter local news future throughout the state. It directly incentivizes publishers to first retain and even more so to hire and expand – and it keeps the state an arm’s length away from those who decide the news, through the tax credit formula.

Finally, let me give you an example of what the bill could do. 

Lookout has already expanded to Eugene, Oregon, where we successfully launched Lookout Eugene-Springfield in April 2025. We are now planning our next expansion into cities along the West Coast. As we do that, this tax credit would incentivize us to choose cities in California. The math is straightforward. These tax credits provide $20,000 per journalist for up to five positions, plus $15,000 per every additional journalist, and an additional $15,000 for new hires. With Santa Cruz-sized markets, the tax credits could contribute 10-15% toward the expense budget; a really good number for those of us excelling with membership and advertising. Essentially, the tax credits first reduce the capital cost of entry — making California more appealing for us, as we consider Oregon and Washington, too. Yes, the business model of digital news start-ups is difficult, but, as we’ve proven, doable. 

Further, the funding would allow us to move forward with expanding our newsroom, as we would like to do in Santa Cruz. While for some publishers, the credits may be used mainly to make the case for more retention and less cutting — and that’s a good thing — for others, we could see real reinvestment in news that Californians need. 

Gov. Newsom, please sign this bill, and let’s get on — with no time to lose — in rebuilding a better local press and enabling communities to simply know more, as our institutions of self-government meet the pressing challenges of our times.

Thank you. 

Ken Doctor,

Founder and CEO 

Lookout Santa Cruz and Lookout Local