California officials are looking for another school to help execute its controversial deal with Google to fund journalism in the state after the University of California, Berkeley, announced it would not host the partnership.
The deal, reached last summer, came after Google and Meta lobbied against legislation, modeled after agreements in Australia and Canada, that would have mandated that digital platforms pay publishers for using their content.
The legislation, authored by Assemblymember Buffy Wicks and approved by Gov. Gavin Newsom, promises to send $180 million to California journalism programs over five years, beginning in 2025. Of that money, $125 million was earmarked for a proposed News Transformation Fund to be housed at the UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism.