News media publishers have a critical opportunity to shape federal policy

America’s Newspapers is taking the Family Owners Conference and Senior Leadership Conference to Washington, D.C., Sept. 27–30. We are also partnering with the News/Media Alliance to coordinate our programming with its annual congressional Fly-In. There’s never been a more important time for the newspaper industry to have a united voice. Together, these meetings allow newspaper leaders to address the issues affecting their businesses and take the industry’s priorities directly to members of Congress.”

Dean Ridings, president and CEO of America’s Newspapers

There are plenty of good reasons to attend an industry conference. But this fall, newspaper executives have an opportunity to do something even more important: make sure Washington hears directly from the people who operate local news organizations.

America’s Newspapers is taking the Family Owners Conference and Senior Leadership Conference to Washington, D.C., Sept. 27–30. We are also partnering with the News/Media Alliance to coordinate our programming with its annual congressional Fly-In.

There’s never been a more important time for the newspaper industry to have a united voice. Together, these meetings allow newspaper leaders to address the issues affecting their businesses and take the industry’s priorities directly to members of Congress.

Our conferences will focus on practical uses of AI, revenue and expense strategies, audience growth, cybersecurity, copyright protection and the decisions shaping the future of local news organizations. The Fly-In will give those same leaders an opportunity to explain how federal policies affect their companies, employees and communities. The newspaper industry has plenty of policy positions. What we need is more publishers personally explaining to policymakers why those positions matter to their businesses and communities.

Washington is making decisions that have direct consequences for newspapers, regardless of which party controls the conversation. We have faced consistent postal rate increases, the ongoing use of newspaper content by Big Tech and artificial intelligence companies, and policies that fail to recognize the economics of producing original local journalism. However, that doesn’t mean that members of Congress are unwilling to listen.

Members of Congress understand the importance of the newspapers serving their districts and states. They know local newspapers cover their schools, businesses, governments and communities. They understand how important newspapers are to their constituents, and they want to see those newspapers succeed.

One of the bills for which we will seek support is the Stealth Bot Prohibition Act, H.R. 9915. This bipartisan legislation would require AI stealth crawlers, often called “bad bots,” to disclose their identity and purpose. This is not an abstract technology debate for publishers. Publishers are seeing bots disguise themselves as human users, overload websites and scrape original journalism without authorization or accountability. Newspapers invest in the reporters, editors and infrastructure required to produce that work. The legislation offers a straightforward response through greater transparency, giving publishers information they can use to protect their content, manage access to their websites and begin creating a more functional marketplace for original journalism.

This bipartisan legislation has already attracted support from across the media industry, but we need publishers to explain to members of Congress why it matters in their own districts. Policy papers can outline the issues, but local publishers can show lawmakers what they mean at home. There are few more effective ways to communicate with our representatives than sitting across the table from them and explaining what is happening in our communities.

If newspaper executives want policymakers to understand the economics of local journalism, they need to be in the room explaining it. Washington needs to hear from us.

Dean Ridings is president and CEO of America’s Newspapers, which represents and advocates for family-owned, independent and group-owned newspapers across the United States. He welcomes your emails at dridings@newspapers.org.