Report: Chuck Schumer Becomes Face of JCPA Media Cartel Bill

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer has held talks with Microsoft about the Journalism Competition and Preservation act (JCPA), a bill that would allow media companies to form a cartel, exempting them from antitrust law for the sole purpose of colluding with Big Tech companies for advantages over their competitors.

Excluding any media outlet that does not have a “dedicated professional editorial staff,” the bill would allow the newly-formed national media cartel to pressure Big Tech companies to give more ad revenue to the likes of BuzzFeed and the New York Times, as well as favor them in search results and news feed algorithms.

The bill has been slammed from all points of the political spectrum, as well as by independent antitrust and communications law experts who call it a gift to some of the wealthiest and most powerful media companies in the world.

On the conservative side, Media Research Center VP and longtime journalist Dan Gainor told Senators earlier this year that the JCPA is a bailout for the same large media companies that are destroying local and independent media. Republican FCC commissioner Nathan Simington and President Trump’s top tech expert Adam Candeub have also slammed the bill.

On the left, the progressive nonprofit Public Knowledge, founded by far-left Biden FCC nominee Gigi Sohn, is also opposed to the bill. In a message to its activists, Public Knowledge echoed the Media Research Center’s argument that the JCPA favors the largest media companies — a rare moment of partisan agreement.

Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Glenn Greenwald testified against the bill in 2021, warning of collusion between America’s largest media companies.

In a later hearing, former federal antitrust enforcer and Harvard law fellow Dr. Daniel Francis said he “cannot think of anything the country needs less, now or ever” than the national media cartel the JCPA would create.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), the leading liberal nonprofit on internet policy in the U.S., concurred, saying the bill favors “media near-monopolies.” 

Despite this widespread opposition — from conservatives, from progressives, from liberals, and from independent experts — the power of the media lobby remains strong, and the JCPA refuses to die.

Despite the media regularly branding their voters racists, insurrectionists, extremists, conspiracy theorists, and all manner of similar smears, some Republican Senators have signed onto the bill, even though it represents a bailout for the likes of the Washington Post and the New York Times. 

In the Senate, these Republicans are: Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), Sen. John Kennedy (R-LA), Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY),  Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME), Sen. Cynthia Lummis (R-WY), and Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-LA).

In the House, the bill was championed by Rep. Ken Buck (R-CO), leading to scathing comments from staffers in the Freedom Caucus. However, the House GOP leadership opposed the bill, with GOP leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) denouncing it as the “antithesis of conservatism,” and Judiciary Committee ranking member Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) slamming Senate Democrats for reviving the bill.

Opposition from Republican Senators is also growing. Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) has said the bill would allow media companies to pressure tech companies to censor their competitors, an opinion echoed by Sens. Tom Cotton (R-AR), and Marco Rubio (R-FL).

Allum Bokhari is the senior technology correspondent at Breitbart News. He is the author of #DELETED: Big Tech’s Battle to Erase the Trump Movement and Steal The Election.