• by Ray Schultz , Columnist, April 21, 2024

Newsrooms are getting some much-needed relief in New York State with the providing of tax credits for hiring local reporters. 

Included in the FY25 state budget, which was passed on Saturday and is due to be signed by Governor Kathy Hochul, is the Newspaper and Broadcast Media Jobs Program, believed to be the first of its kind in the nation.  

The measure is designed to “strengthen local news coverage by creating a $30 million tax credit to hire and retain journalists for qualifying, independently owned print media or broadcasting entities, particularly those that have experienced workforce or circulation decline in the last five years,” says State Senator Brad Hoylman-Sigal (D), co-sponsor of the Local Journalism Sustainability Act, the provisions of which were incorporated into the budget.  

The $30 million tax credit is good for 50% of the first $50,000 of a journalist’s salary for jobs provided during the next three years. These employment tax credits can be used only for newsroom support and rebuilding.

The package adds up to $90 million over three years. 

"Local newspapers are disappearing, subsumed into national companies and relying on national content providers to fill their pages,” says the bill’s other co-sponsor, Assemblywoman Carrier Woerner 
(D). “On-the-ground trained journalists play a crucial role in keeping people informed about what is happening in their county, city, town, village or neighborhood.”

The initiative was driven by the Albany Newspaper Guild, New York News Publishers Association, the New York State AFL-CIO, the News Guild-CWA and the Communication Workers of America starting in 2022. 

“Journalism, particularly newsprint, is facing unprecedented hardship and this bill will not only protect existing jobs and encourage the creation of new ones, but it will help ensure the viability of a free and open press which is integral to our democracy,” says Mario Cilento, president of the New York State AFL-CIO. 

Hochul’s $237 million budget was passed three weeks after the April 1 deadline, The New York Times reports.  

The budget also includes provisions for a statewide artificial intelligence consortium, a housing agreement designed to support affordable housing construction and funding to fight retail crime, the Times continues.