LION's Policy Platform

Published December 23, 2025.

Table of Contents

Introduction

Independent publishers represent a rare source of optimism in an otherwise challenging journalism landscape.

It is encouraging to see bipartisan support at both the state and federal levels for initiatives that could strengthen local independent news publishing. However, laws and regulations shaping the industry are often written and influenced by legacy media lobbyists whose efforts primarily serve the interests of news organizations already better-resourced than digitally-focused peers, which have launched more recently to serve urgent news and information needs of diverse communities across the country. The needs of these independent publishers have been ignored or disregarded in these important discussions for years, which necessitated LION’s entry into the policy and advocacy space.

Photo by YayaErnst on iStock

LION is excited to share its very first policy platform, which represents our priorities for supporting the continued growth of a more equitable and sustainable media ecosystem. These priorities will guide our advocacy efforts at a time when hundreds of bills impacting local media are introduced in state legislatures across the country every year.

We believe independent publishers must have a voice in the policy decisions that shape the future of journalism, and that our work will advance this ambition. LION is committed to not only representing our current members but the broader needs of the emerging local news industry.

Survey Results

To inform and develop this policy platform, we circulated a survey to our members in fall 2025 to better understand their needs and policy priorities.

The survey gathered insights on the issues most critical to member businesses on a range of policy areas and identified the most urgent challenges. The responses provided valuable guidance for shaping LION’s advocacy agenda.

Member policy priority ratings

We identified eight policy buckets based on previous calls with members, engagement on local policy issues, and a needs-based assessment of the journalism policy space. We asked members to rate their importance on a scale of 1 to 5 — with one being the least important, and five being the most important. The eight policy buckets, which have all been proposed or introduced in municipal, state, or federal legislative bodies, were: employment tax credits, payroll tax credits, grant-making organizations, advertising set-asides, public notice reform, subscriber tax credits, funding for journalism fellowships, and anti-SLAPP laws. Below are the results based on the average rating out of 5 by our members.

Creating or funding
grant-making organizations

4.20

Anti-SLAPP laws

3.87

Advertising set-asides

3.73

Public notice reform

3.60

Funding for journalism fellowships

3.51

Payroll tax credits

3.27

Employment tax credits

3.10

Subscriber tax credits

2.76

Summary of results

We also asked members several other questions to gather additional feedback on the issues and concerns they have on public policy issues. Below is a high-level summary of the top responses.

Challenges facing local independent digital publishers

Of the many issues identified by our members, there were several common themes:

Funding and sustainability. This was the most urgent and recurring theme among responses, which comes as little surprise given the current state of the local independent news industry. Publishers highlighted the need for direct, equitable funding as one of the most urgent challenges they face, but said that other policies like tax credits and advertising set-asides were also important when reaching their goal of financial security and operational sustainability.
Equity in public notice policies. Consistent with our survey ratings results, public notice reform was heavily mentioned by our members as one of the most urgent policy issues they currently face. There is a clear recognition that, for the most part, states have antiquated laws for public notices that are not modernized for the digital age, and those laws largely favor legacy print media.
Freedom of the press and the ongoing threats to the First Amendment. Unprecedented attacks on the First Amendment and increasing hostilities toward journalists in general have created an ever-present threat to independent digital publishers.
Big tech regulation and emergence of artificial intelligence. Members expressed wariness about the share of local ad dollars captured by large tech platforms, which have historically dominated the digital advertising space. The rapid emergence and proliferation of artificial intelligence platforms, and their use of journalism content, is also a growing concern among members.
Anticompetitive behavior from legacy media. A common thread many members cited, which can be seen across policy issues, is the power legacy media still holds in this space. Many laws are written to heavily favor large, corporate-owned legacy media outlets, and lobbyists often define ‘publishers’ in ways that exclude LION members and similar independent publishers from legislative benefit.

Barriers to revenue growth

Revenue growth is, and will continue to be, a challenge in the news business, especially for news start-ups and small local publishers. There is significant concern from LION members that the existing market cannot sustain quality local journalism without more accessible funding opportunities. As one member said, “traditional revenue sources have become inadequate. Journalism is not sustainable without civic support.”

Members identified several key barriers, including:

Sustainable funding. Members overwhelmingly cited the lack of regular funding for local news. The cost to produce quality local journalism is something that they feel most policymakers do not understand, and there is a chronic need for long-term, direct financial support.
Inequity in digital ad revenue among large tech platforms. Tech monopolies dominate the information ecosystem and capture most of the digital ad revenue that ecosystem generates. There is a strong desire to channel policy solutions directed towards leveling this playing field.
Outdated policies that favor legacy media. Our members recognize that the policy landscape is stacked against them in favor of legacy media, and it hurts their bottom lines. Outdated public notice policies, headcount-weighted distribution of funding models, and advertising laws that exclude emergent digital publishers gatekeep independent publishers.
Inequity in philanthropy. Members felt that grant funding and other philanthropic support often favors legacy media and other publishers in larger metropolitan areas, and believe there are large gaps in support for rural and ethnic media.
AI and content exploitation. Members are keenly aware of the rapidly developing landscape of artificial intelligence and how it impacts their business. They are concerned about the reduced search traffic caused by AI, and how their content is accessed to train and inform large language models, rather than driving traffic to their sites.

Broadband expansion urgency

Broadband access is a critical issue for digital publishers and a prerequisite for democratic participation in today’s world. We were curious to ask members about broadband expansion and equitable digital access. One member rightly pointed out, “broadband expansion and equitable digital access aren’t peripheral — they are foundational to the sustainability of local independent outlets like ours, and to the civic health of the communities we serve."

We have summarized the broad takeaways from member responses below:

Broadband expansion is a critical issue. It was clear that broadband expansion was important for both readers’ access to news and for our members' digital publishing operations, with many publishers in more rural areas feeling that their current access is inadequate.
Availability is only part of the problem. Members rightly pointed out that “access” does not just mean the availability of internet in their area, but that it is reliable and affordable. In more rural areas, publishers and their readers often have limited and/or expensive options due to internet service providers being less inclined to deploy high-speed broadband in hard-to-service areas. Broadband gaps create information deserts.

What members think lawmakers should know about them

Small publishers are an essential component of civic infrastructure. Several members pointed out that small publishers are more than just private businesses/non-profits, that they play a key role in civic infrastructure, and hoped to see lawmakers view them as such in their policymaking work.
Small independent publishers are growing and deserve more of a voice in policymaking. Some members pointed out that many state publishers' associations only represent a small portion of news publishers — and often those memberships are print-dominant. They hope lawmakers will understand that their voices have been historically underrepresented, or in some cases unrepresented, in most policy discussions about local news.
Rural, Indigenous, BIPOC, and multilingual newsrooms often see less benefit. Several members representing these communities rightly pointed out that journalism initiatives and funding have often helped more urban, white, and English-only publications, but that rural, Indigenous, BIPOC, and multilingual publications also provide essential services for their communities. They would like to see more time and attention addressing this inequity.

Advocacy Mission

LION’s mission is to strengthen the local news industry by helping independent news publishers build more sustainable businesses, which guides our policy work.

Se Habla Media's Diana Oliveros at LION's 2025 Independent News Sustainability Summit. Photo by Fig Media

We believe independent local news is vital to healthy communities and a thriving democracy. Our members are small businesses that create jobs and keep the dollars they earn in the communities they serve. Therefore, our policy work focuses on creating the conditions for independent publishers to thrive through supporting legislation that enables them to continue doing their important work, and through policies that create a stronger local news ecosystem in a dynamic and ever-changing world.

Values

Preventing the corporate capture of public funds

News media is under attack, and it is more important than ever to protect and support independent media across the United States. This unprecedented situation requires a disruptive urgency at every level of policymaking. Unfortunately, legacy media’s refusal to evolve can be seen in the investment of high-powered lobbyists to craft laws that benefit legacy outlets instead of the broader local news industry. LION remains deeply concerned about massive corporate conglomerates gaining access to public funding that should otherwise be going to smaller, local, independent news media and start-ups that are truly invested in their communities and serving the public interest. This quote from a LION member perfectly sums up why investing in independent local media is important: “We’re not just reporting on the community — we’re part of it.”

Giving local online publishers a voice in the policy arena

Hundreds of bills are introduced every year in states throughout the country that directly impact the business and practice of journalism. For far too long, the conversations surrounding these bills and their passage have been dominated by legacy media stakeholders and lobbyists, while independent digital media voices have been deliberately excluded. LION’s aim is to disrupt this status quo by ensuring independent digital media has a zealous advocate in the most important and impactful rooms where policy is being made.

Building partnerships to advance policies that help independent publishers

We know that few things in the policy world can be accomplished alone, which is why LION is committed to forming important and meaningful partnerships both within, and outside, the journalism industry to advocate for policies that can help strengthen independent publishers.

Policy Priorities

This inaugural policy platform draws on LION’s expertise and experience, as well as extensive input from our members.

LION currently has members in 48 states, several U.S. territories, and Canada — and their feedback weighed heavily in how this platform was crafted. While not exhaustive, it outlines the key areas LION will advance at the state and federal levels to ensure the interests of local news publishers are effectively represented.

Public grant making bodies

The traditional advertising revenue model is not a sustainable option for many small, local publishers today. In fact, shifts in this model have created a funding crisis for local journalism across the country. Public grant making bodies are emerging as a viable solution to this problem, adding a reliable additional revenue stream at a time when it is desperately needed.

The New Jersey Civic Information Consortium is a first-in-the-nation model for how this can work across different states. The NJCIC is a non-profit with funding appropriated by the state that provides grants to support local journalism, media startups, and other civic information ventures.

A critical component of any public grant making body is their funding distribution formula. Some distribution formulas base grant making decisions on headcount (i.e., the number of journalists a publisher employs). This model heavily favors legacy media, which typically employs more journalists than independent publishers, and can result in inequitable distribution of grant funds. LION believes a better funding model would be one that is based on community need and addresses inequities in funding for rural and ethnic media.

LION urges policymakers to support public grant making organizations, like civic information consortiums, that:

Fund independent community-based journalism publishers
Prioritize small, independent, online news publishers over legacy media and corporate-owned outlets
Prioritize funding rural and ethnic media
Do not rely on newsroom headcount for its funding distribution model
Include non-profit publishers in grant eligibility criteria

Tax credits

Tax credits can be an important tool in helping local publishers maintain sustainable businesses, provided they are structured in a way that allows for independent digital publishers to take advantage of them. In many instances, lobbyists write the bills that get passed into law offering tax credits to legacy outlets, while excluding small digital publishers and local start-ups who could benefit greatly from them.

LION is supportive of tax credit policies like employment tax credits, payroll tax credits, and advertising tax credits that are inclusive to smaller, independent, and digital publishers that:

Do not exclude digital publishers from eligibility
Do not contain unnecessarily high eligibility requirements that exclude smaller publishers and solopreneurs

Advertising set-asides

Another emerging revenue source for local publishers is advertising set-asides. This type of policy requires government entities to allocate a specified portion of their advertising budgets for local news publishers. In many cases, this is a revenue-neutral policy because most government entities already have an advertising budget — making it ideal to pursue and politically less onerous than fighting for new appropriation sources.

Too often, large legacy publishers have been the sole beneficiaries of advertising set-asides by local governments. Advertising set-aside policies that are designed to benefit, not exclude, a more diverse group of local publishers can help build sustainable businesses and support community-based journalism.

Advertising set-asides are a proven success. In 2019, New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio signed an executive order requiring 50 percent of the city’s print and digital advertising budget go to community and ethnic media outlets. In its first five years, it infused over $72 million into community media — providing a meaningful boost in revenue to nearly 300 local outlets.

LION supports government advertising set-asides that reserve a portion of public advertising dollars specifically for independent digital publishers. Prioritizing independent publishers for government advertising will ensure that public advertising dollars are staying in the community, and the important government information reaches the people who need it the most.

Artificial intelligence (AI)

LION recognizes that artificial intelligence presents both opportunity and risk for local news publishers.

Many publishers utilize AI tools, in the course of their reporting and content distribution. AI products designed for publishers can help small organizations do their critical work more effectively and reach more people. While it is important to acknowledge that AI tools can help streamline news and business operations, there is substantial evidence that AI is also being used for content exploitation that could further erode the local publishing landscape.

LION supports an AI policy framework that ensures independent publishers retain control over how their work is accessed, used, or replicated by large language models (LLMs) and similar AI technology. These policies must guarantee that publishers’ rights, needs, and economic interests are prioritized and protected, while also allowing them to utilize AI tools that help them do their jobs more effectively.

LION supports policies that:

Guarantee publisher control over whether, how, and under what terms their content is used for AI model training, grounding, or other automated applications
Safeguard the role of journalists and prevent AI tools from displacing original reporting and local newsroom labor
Strengthen intellectual property protections to prevent unauthorized extraction, reproduction, or commercialization of local news content by AI developers or platforms

Anti-SLAPP protections

In the United States, we are in the midst of unprecedented attacks on journalists throughout the country by private citizens, and by the government itself. Litigation in retaliation for journalists reporting the news has a chilling effect in general, but can also financially devastate small publishers. Journalists should feel empowered to do their jobs without fear, or feeling compelled to self-censor, due to meritless lawsuits filed against them. Expanding protections for journalists against this type of litigation is critical for the independent publishing industry.

Currently, 38 states have some form of Anti-SLAPP law on the books, though they vary in the level of protection each offers.

LION strongly encourages policymakers to support legislation modeled after the Uniform Law Commission’s Uniform Public Expression Protection Act (“UPEPA”).

Without such protections, journalists will continue to face financial and professional risks for simply doing their jobs.

Link taxes & platform compensation legislation

Journalism is facing a funding crisis. Several legislatures have responded by attempting to compel large tech platforms to pay taxes and fees in an effort to compensate qualifying news publishers through many methods including bargaining codes, surcharges, and taxes on advertising revenue.

While none in the U.S. have thus far been successful, other countries have experimented with tech tax and bargaining code laws, all of which have caused harm to independent publishers.

Canada’s Online News Act

Canada’s Online News Act that took effect in late 2023 appears to have benefitted large legacy publishers more than smaller independent ones. Larger publishers in Canada had more bargaining power due to having significantly more resources than small independent publishers.

Meta responded to this law by blocking links to local news stories on their platforms, which has disproportionately harmed smaller publishers who were more heavily reliant on platforms like Facebook and Instagram to drive traffic to their sites. Meanwhile, Google struck an agreement with the Canadian government that allowed them to be exempt from the act in exchange for payments to publishers.

Small local publishers have suffered since the Online News Act went into effect, in part due to Meta’s news ban, with some publications seeing drops of up to 80 percent in referral traffic.

Australia’s News Media Bargaining Code

Australia’s News Media Bargaining Code (NMBC) was passed in 2021 and has largely benefitted legacy media outlets. Many small local publishers in Australia do not meet the eligibility requirements of the NMBC to qualify for funding, and many who do qualify lack the resources needed to navigate the process and apply for funds. The majority of the funding from the NMBC is believed to have gone to large news organizations, like Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp. It is unclear how much money each corporation has received from the NMBC and what the money was used for because the details are not public. What is clear about the NMBC is that small local publishers have yet to see significant benefit from it.

LION recognizes that government regulation can serve the public good and does not oppose its responsible use. However, it is critical that regulatory efforts not undermine the ability of independent publishers to operate and grow on a free and open internet. We remain highly skeptical of any framework that compels tech platforms to pay for accessing news sites or prevents them from accessing news sites without an agreement with each publisher. This framework incentivizes platforms to block link traffic instead, which we saw play out in Canada after the Online News Act was passed.

LION understands that this is a dynamic and developing area of policy, and plans to assess all emerging legislation of this kind on a case-by-case basis. We will continue to engage in conversations with local publishers and will not support anything that threatens the existence and sustainability of local news businesses.

Public notices

LION believes that public notices play an important role in the media ecosystem both as a resource to inform residents of actions that affect their lives and their communities, and as a means for community-centered news publishers to generate an additional revenue stream that can help sustain their businesses.

In public notice legislation, lawmaking bodies tend to define a ‘publication of record’ as the requirement to participate in the publishing of public notices and legal advertisements. A large part of that requirement has been regular print publication, in many cases daily or weekly. In recent years, as the economics of a daily print schedule have steadily worsened and legacy newspapers have closed or eliminated printing during some or all weekdays, state legislatures across the country have been debating — and sometimes passing — bills to modernize outdated public notice laws.

Many existing public notice laws exclude digital-only publications from being eligible to be named ‘papers of record’ and earn the designation to publish public notices, limiting the public’s access to vital information and giving an unfair advantage to legacy publications.

As print newspapers continue to close and local news further migrates online, it is important for digital-only publications to be eligible for publishing public notices. Virginia became the first state in the nation to allow publication of legal notices in online-only local news publications in 2024, which can serve as a model for other states to follow suit.

LION urges policymakers to update these antiquated laws and ensure that local independent online publishers, like our members, are included in any new eligibility criteria. This will create a more level playing field in the evolving news landscape and ensure public notices reach the audiences who need them most, while also extending support to emerging publishers who are already serving communities that are no longer being served by legacy news organizations.

For questions about LION's policy platform, please contact Chuck Corra at chuckcorra@lionpublishers.com.