Gov. Gavin Newsom’s budget proposal includes no money for a fund formed last year to boost the state’s local newsrooms, casting doubt on whether a heralded effort to help California journalists will amount to anything and how serious Newsom is about supporting the struggling industry.
its a significant walkback from an August 2024 deal between state leaders and Google in which they agreed to jointly spend $175 million over five years to fund local journalism.
The deal, which Newsom hailed as a “major breakthrough in ensuring the survival of newsrooms” at the time,was reached after Google spent a record sum - $11 million – lobbying state lawmakers successfully to drop two proposals that would have forced Google to pay newsrooms for using their content. Under the agreement, the state would pay $70 million and Google $55 million into the newly established California Civic Media Fund for local news outlets. Google would also continue issuing its annual $10-million newsroom grants.
But in May 2025, citing budget restraints, Newsom slashed the state’s first-year commitment to just $10 million for fiscal year 2025-26, with no future state funding guaranteed. Google later said it would match the state’s $10-million investment but no more.
Google was clear in the deal that “its contributions were contingent” on state funding, similar to its journalism funding deal in Canada, said Erin Ivie, spokesperson for Assemblymember Buffy Wicks, an Oakland Democrat who brokered the deal in 2024.
A 2019 study by the trade group News Media Alliance estimated that Google made $4.7 billion from news sites in 2018. Google’s parent company, Alphabet, made over $100 billion in the third quarter of 2025 alone – its ”first ever $100-billion quarter,” said Alphabet and Google CEO Sundar Pichai. By Wednesday, Alphabet’s market cap was over $4 trillion.
None of the $20 million pledged has reached local news outlets, drawing disappointment from journalism advocates. The governor’s office of business and Economic Progress, which administers the funds, has received the money and expects to distribute it this year, said agency spokesperson Willie Rudman.
“At this point right now, nobody should be jumping up and down and getting excited,” California News Publishers Assn. President Chuck Champion said.
Newsom’s lack of proposed funding for future years angered Champion, who said the governor failed to keep his promise.
“He’s more interested in the billionaires and his friends than he’s interested in journalists who are out on the street,” Champion said.”He talks about democracy, he talks about how critically crucial it is, and then he a