After lobbyists for the media industry failed to include the Journalism Competition and Preservation Act (JCPA), a significant gift for corporate media companies, in the annual military budget bill, they are now trying to sneak it into a potential omnibus package.
Breitbart News has heard from sources on Capitol Hill that media lobbyists are making last-ditch efforts to contact members to attach the bill to an omnibus if one is enacted, even though it is still unclear whether or not a collection will be passed.
Despite the JCPA’s overwhelming defeat in the Senate and House, its proponents played dangerous games with national security by trying to attach the bill to the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) despite the lack of any connection between the account and the needs of the nation’s defense and the presence of loopholes that would empower America’s foreign adversaries.
The JCPA intends to encourage the formation of a cartel of influential media firms capable of exerting pressure on Silicon Valley tech titans to deliver financial handouts and other favors to the cartel in exchange for the titans’ ongoing support of the cartel. The bill features several provisions that would provide the most prominent media conglomerates the ability to suppress conventional and independent rivals, ensuring that Big Tech continues to favor the most significant corporate media sources over conservative alternatives.
Representative Kevin McCarthy (R-CA), Senators Marsha Blackburn (R-TN), Tom Cotton (R-AR), Marco Rubio (R), and Mike Lee (R-UT), and Representatives Jim Jordan (R-OH) and Steve Scalise (R-LA) all voted against the measure in the House and Senate, respectively (R-LA).
The newly appointed House Majority Whip, Republican Tom Emmer of Minnesota, agrees with McCarthy that the JCPA shouldn’t be included in any end-of-year omnibus.
Republican Alabama senator-elect Katie Britt has also recently spoken out against the proposal, saying it had “no place” in an omnibus bill.
Senator Mike Braun, a Republican from Indiana, referred to the plan as a “barnacle” and said it had no business being included in omnibus or “must-pass” legislation.
Representative Ben Cline (R-VA) of the House Appropriations Committee agreed that the JCPA should not be included in an omnibus spending bill. The tactic of having controversial statements in must-pass bundles like the omnibus was also criticized.
According to Breitbart News, Representative Cline said, “If we want to change the current quo in Washington and better represent the American people whom we were elected to serve, we must ensure that legislation gets considered on its own merits than coupled with unrelated expenditure bills.”
The bill’s elements to silence and marginalize conservative media were previously highlighted by Breitbart News.
Despite a last-minute amendment introduced in the Senate to address longstanding worries about the media industry and Big Tech coordinating on silencing competitors, the bill still contains plenty of channels for the cartel to marginalize conservative media.
Very little is guaranteed in terms of protection from “viewpoint” discrimination on the part of the cartel. Corporate censorship tools like social media platforms and so-called “fact checkers” rarely give reasons like prejudice or political ideology for their operations. The censors said they don’t discriminate based on political beliefs but rather remove content due to “misinformation,” “hate speech,” and “conspiracy theories.”
Conservatives aren’t the only ones making fun of the law; media unions have done the same thing since they know that the actual winners are the vast media firms and the hedge fund owners who control them rather than the hardworking journalists and newsrooms who generate the news.