Washington legislators will have two opportunities in their upcoming session to support the local news industry, if they’re not completely focused on growing the state budget.

State Sen. Marko Liias, D-Edmonds, is preparing a new version of Senate Bill 5400, the measure he introduced last January to raise taxes on dominant tech platforms profiting from local news.

Proceeds would fund grants to support local journalism, potentially raising around $25 million a year.

“I think we’ve got to keep this issue front and center,” Liias said, adding that he hears “at least once a week” from constituents and others who thank him for addressing the local journalism crisis.

Liias said details are still being worked out in consultation with a group of publishers and advocates for local news. But the current plan is a business and occupation tax surcharge for companies that own online platforms and are “generating significant revenue through publishing.”

A key change will be to create a new B&O surcharge on the companies, rather than expand one used for higher education, as initially proposed. That seemed like an easy approach, but created the appearance of competing with education.

This is less ambitious than a journalism bill that nearly passed in Oregon last summer and earlier proposals in California, which more directly addressed the problem of dominant platforms not fairly compensating publishers.

But a revised version of SB 5400 is also less likely to start a battle royale with Big Tech companies that could delay or kill funding.

Oregon’s measure estimated the value of news to Google and Facebook in the state to be around $122 million a year. It would have required them to pay that much into a fund mostly divided among local news organizations.

Local news outlets must be fairly compensated by platforms profiting from their work. Regulators and courts have found publishers were harmed by Google’s unfair business practices, and other countries are addressing this with policies to help news organizations get a better deal.

The problem is worsening as AI makes it harder for local news organizations to succeed online.

States could make a difference. That’s one reason tech companies are lobbying for a federal policy preventing states from any sort of AI regulation. Congress refused to grant this favor in July but now the White House is drafting an order directing the Department of Justice to sue states that pass AI regulations, The Washington Post reported last week.

Tackling this would be a lot for Washington legislators in a short 2026 session dominated by budget issues. They are looking for ways to sustain the growth of state spending, which is outpacing projected revenue and population growth.

Liias said he was willing to pursue a policy more like Oregon’s or the Journalism Competition and Preservation Act proposed in Congress. But news leaders and advocates were wary.

“If I had to characterize what I heard back, it is that there’s so much legal uncertainty about that model that even if we could get it passed, it would end up likely in court and it’s not clear, you know, what the disposition of that would be,” he said.

Legislators will also be asked to restore funding for a local journalism fellowship program, created in 2023 and operated by Washington State University. It places early career journalists in temporary positions at local news outlets.

Funding for the Murrow Fellowships was cut by $1.5 million during this year’s legislative session and will expire in 2026.

WSU paused recruitment so the current program will end when the last of 16 fellows complete their stints next October.

Given budget concerns, WSU won’t ask legislators to fund the fellowship again in 2026, according to Chris Mulick, its senior director of state relations.

But others will, including the program’s original sponsor.

“It’s not going to be easy but I think the fellowship program has proven its worth,” said former state Sen. Karen Keiser.

She is working with the League of Women Voters of Washington to inform legislators of the program’s importance and impact.

“I think they can extend the program with a budget proviso and a salting of money,” Keiser said.

Keiser noted that the fellowship funding is trivial in the still-growing state budget, which is $78 billion in the current biennium.

Meanwhile, WSU is pursuing support from nonprofit organizations in hopes of continuing the fellowships in a potentially different form.

“We have a ton of interest in building out the next phase of this program,” said Ben Shors, journalism chair at WSU’s Murrow College. “We’re incredibly excited about what we can do next to leverage state support to do something even better and more robust.”

Shors is also trying to preserve legislative coverage the fellowship provided earlier this year.

One remaining fellow, Erick Bengel, will transfer from the Walla Walla Union-Bulletin to Olympia during the upcoming session.

“It’s a chance to have a reporter in Olympia who is paying attention to Southeast and Central Washington issues for our audience and it’s a chance to add to his skill set,” said Greg Halling, who oversees news operations at the Union-Bulletin and the Yakima Herald-Republic, which are owned by The Seattle Times.

Another fellow, Questen Inghram, is working at the Yakima paper until April.

“It’s been a godsend,” Halling said of the fellowships. “In Yakima, Questen has basically helped us restore our reporting staff.”

If Washingtonians favor these approaches to supporting local journalism, I encourage them to contact representatives over the next month, as priorities are developed for the coming session. It’s also a good topic to discuss when many of them campaign for reelection next year.

This is excerpted from the free, weekly Voices for a Free Press newsletter. Sign up to receive it at the Save the Free Press website, st.news/SavetheFreePress. Seattle Times’ Brier Dudley is the editor of the Free Press Initiative, which aims to inform the public about issues facing newspapers, local news coverage, and a free press. You can learn more about the Free Press Initiative, or sign up for a newsletter, at https://company.seattletimes.com/save-the-free-press/.