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THE ASTORIAN • SATuRdAy, AuguST 6, 2022
OPINION
editor@dailyastorian.com
KARI BORGEN
Publisher
DERRICK DePLEDGE
Editor
Founded in 1873
JOHN D. BRUIJN
Production Manager
SAMANTHA STINNETT
Circulation Manager
SARAH SILVER
Advertising Sales Manager
GUEST COLUMN
Big Tech is steamrolling newspapers
G
oogle and Facebook have enor-
mous economic and politi-
cal power in society — espe-
cially over the news industry. Many ask
if they have played a role in the misin-
formation that erodes our free press and
plagues our democracy.
Google and Facebook have a
duopoly of the distribution of digi-
tal news content, which
drives people to their
platforms where they
make money. The plat-
forms hoard critical data
and use clever tactics,
like reframing stories in
rich previews, to keep
BRETT
users on their sites –
WESNER
siphoning off the adver-
tising revenue that small
and local publishers need and weaken-
ing their ability to be rewarded for their
own content.
Google and Facebook generated
$4 million in U.S. advertising revenue
every 15 minutes during the first quarter
of 2022. That amount could fund hun-
dreds of local journalists in every state
in the country.
It’s no wonder that, despite record
news consumption, local newspapers
across the country have seen dimin-
ished revenues – leading many to lay
off journalists or go out of business.
Local newspapers simply can’t compete
with these national platforms, Google
and Facebook. The imbalance of power
between these platforms and local
newspapers – let alone any single local
paper – is so vast that newspapers can-
not negotiate the exploitation of news.
But antitrust laws shield Google and
Facebook from the possibility of news
publishers working together to demand
better terms.
No company should have this much
control over the news. Congress must
take action to curb undue influence of
Big Tech on the news media industry
– and the Journalism Competition and
Preservation Act aims to do just that.
The legislation is specifically
designed to address Google’s and
Facebook’s anticompetitive prac-
tices. The proposal would provide a
Jeff Chiu/AP Photo
Google and Facebook have a duopoly of the distribution of digital news content.
MEMBERS OF CONGRESS ON BOTH SIDES
OF THE AISLE AGREE: WE NEED TO PASS
THE LEgISLATION TO ENSuRE THAT
PUBLISHERS — ESPECIALLY SMALL AND
LOCAL PUBLISHERS — ARE TREATED FAIRLY
AND CAN SERVE THEIR COMMUNITIES.
temporary, limited antitrust safe har-
bor for small and local news publish-
ers to collectively negotiate with Face-
book and Google for fair compensation
for the use of their content. The policy
also incentivizes and rewards publish-
ers who invest in their journalists and
newsroom personnel, awarding outlets
with demonstrated investments in their
staff a larger portion of the funds that
result from the negotiations.
By addressing Google’s and Face-
book’s monopoly power and ensur-
ing more subscription and advertis-
ing dollars flow back to publishers, the
legislation not only protects and pro-
motes quality news, but also encourages
competition.
In today’s partisan political climate,
it is rare for Democrats and Republicans
to agree on anything — but the Journal-
ism Competition and Preservation Act
is one important exception. Members
of Congress on both sides of the aisle
agree: we need to pass the legislation
to ensure that publishers — especially
small and local publishers — are treated
fairly and can serve their communities.
Brett Wesner is the chairman of the
National Newspaper Association and
president of Wesner Publications in
Oklahoma.
GUEST COLUMN
Let’s party like it’s 1854
I
f what follows is going to make sense
vision. The party’s component tribes —
to you, it might help to know I’ve
each cherishing its particular sense of vic-
timhood more than the general welfare —
been a serious student of history since
1969 when a leprechaun-like dean put this
demand conflicting priorities. The result?
18-year-old country boy into a grad-level
A dozen “top priorities,” which, of course,
seminar on the first 26 years of American
means no priorities — except winning the
constitutional history.
next election.
From that day until this, history
Meanwhile, over the decades,
has been the lens through which
Republicans continued slouching
I’ve tried to puzzle out what’s going
toward Berchtesgaden. In my col-
lege days, conservatives had been
on in our world — and what we
distinguished for intellectualism –
might do about it.
History also explains why, this
William F. Buckley, Russell Kirk,
year, I’m running for the Oregon
Peter Viereck, etc.
Legislature without party affiliation.
In time, despairing of winning
‘RICK
I’ve been around politics all my
majorities through ideas, Republi-
GRAY
The Whig Party splintered in 1854 over slavery.
cans embraced mere populism. The
life — campaigning for Democrats
party of Lincoln degenerated into
and Republicans I respected. Until
notion of the cataclysm toward which their
a party of bigotry, superstition, greed and
this year, I’d avoided running myself. But
actions tended.
adolescent narcissism. In time, this popu-
2022 feels different somehow. It feels, if I
lism turned dangerous. Today, few Repub-
Increasingly, this book struck me as a
may say so, historic.
I’ve long regarded America’s two-party
licans can be trusted with the machinery of
metaphor for our times.
system as increasingly dysfunctional, but
democracy.
I found myself focusing on Chapter 10,
as a young man, I tried to find my place
And the two-party system?
which introduces the only truly successful
in it. My father, Frederick T. Gray, served
In my youth, Democrats and Repub-
third party in American history: the origi-
nal Republican Party. And I began to find
licans competed to offer alternative —
18 years as a Democratic Virginia state
hope.
but essentially positive — visions for the
legislator, so I grew up in his party. But
By 1854, America’s two-party system
future. Now, they compete to be merely
increasingly, the Democrats struck me as a
had grown dysfunctional. The nation was
the lesser of two evils. Such a debased
ménagerie of tribes, held together by ruth-
less, machine tactics. The Republicans
competition offers Americans neither
bitterly divided, primarily over one com-
pelling moral issue, which neither party
appeared to have room for a “progressive
vision, ideas, nor hope.
had the courage to address. Slavery.
conservative” — a term coined by Ben-
Wherever life took me, I pondered the
jamin Disraeli and personified by Teddy
Directly related to this moral issue was
degeneration of the partisan duopoly. Over
Roosevelt. In 1978, a young lawyer with
the practical need for economic transfor-
time, one volume of history demanded
mation: from producing raw materials for
ambitions of my own, I switched.
repeated study: David M. Potter’s 1976
Republican Gov. John Dalton wel-
European markets to industrializing here,
Pulitzer Prize-winner, “The Impending
comed me — appointing me secretary of
feeding new factory towns from small
Crisis, 1848-1861.” In his study of the
the Commonwealth. I volunteered for John
farms and ranches in the West, with every-
years leading to the Civil War, Potter tells
thing connected by rail.
Warner’s U.S. Senate campaign, and got
the story of ordinary politicians practic-
ing everyday politics with only the vaguest
One event finally disrupted two-party
to escort his wife, Elizabeth Taylor, to sev-
eral events. But within two years, Virgin-
ia’s GOP was taken over by Reaganites —
LETTERS WELCOME
mostly segregationist former Democrats.
Reading the writing on the wall, I
quit the party. A year later, having pub-
Letters should be exclusive to The
to other letter writers should address
licly opposed President Reagan’s jailing
Astorian. Letters should be fewer
the issue at hand and should refer to
of striking air traffic controllers, I lost my
than 250 words and must include the
the headline and date the letter was
job.
writer’s name, address and phone
published. Discourse should be civil.
Another year on, I found myself in a
number. You will be contacted to
Send via email to editor@dailyasto-
high-school classroom, sharing my love of
rian.com, online at bit.ly/astorianlet-
confirm authorship. All letters are
history with a new generation.
ters, in person at 949 Exchange St.
subject to editing for space, gram-
Since then, I’ve occasionally tried the
mar and factual accuracy. Only two
in Astoria or mail to Letters to the
Democrats, working on behalf of candi-
letters per writer are allowed each
Editor, P.O. Box 210, Astoria, OR.,
dates including Gary Hart, Howard Dean
month. Letters written in response
97103.
and Elizabeth Warren. But it was always
awkward. Democrats lack a unifying
Kean Collection/Getty Images
paralysis. In 1854, the Kansas-Nebraska
Act opened all Western territories to slav-
ery. Outraged anti-slavery politicians —
Whigs and Democrats — quit their respec-
tive parties, embraced former enemies and
founded a new party.
Within seven years, this new third party
had put Abraham Lincoln in the White
House and captured both Houses of Con-
gress. Once in power, Republicans passed
the Homestead Act, began building trans-
continental railroads, and — aided by
wartime demand and federally-chartered
banks — began transforming America into
the world’s greatest economy.
They also won a war and ended slavery.
Yet strangely, American students are
routinely assured that third parties “cannot
succeed” here.
History tells us otherwise. A third party
can succeed, if only in very specific cir-
cumstances. Are these circumstances pres-
ent today? Consider:
• A broken two-party system? Check.
• An urgent moral imperative? Saving
our planet for future generations.
• A related need to transform our econ-
omy? Sustainability.
To this student of history, we have
arrived, again, at 1854.
This is why, at 71, I’ve decided to run
for office — independent of both par-
ties. To see if my reading of history makes
sense to anyone else. But more impor-
tantly, for the sake of our future.
Frederick “‘Rick” gray Jr. lives in Can-
non Beach and is running as a nonaffiliated
candidate for state House District 32.