Washington AG Bob Ferguson rallies other state leaders to help build back local journalism

Local journalism has been in crisis for decades. But since the pandemic started, more than 90 local newsrooms in the U.S. have closed their doors for good. There's now a push in Congress to provide tax credits for local newsrooms to hire journalists.

It's in play as part of the Build Back Better bill still being hammered out, and it has a big champion in Washington state Attorney General Bob Ferguson. He and other attorney generals around the country are urging Congress to pass it. Ferguson told KUOW’s Kim Malcolm about the effort.

This interview has been edited for clarity.

Kim Malcolm: You are the top legal officer in the state of Washington. Why are you leading this effort?

AG Bob Ferguson: I can appreciate that it may seem strange that a bunch of lawyers are getting involved in this issue. I think when you dig a little deeper, it becomes clear that it's pretty central to our job. Local media is often uncovering bad acts by bad actors that my team and I then discuss after reading the morning paper. That leads to investigations and lawsuits that help the people of the state of Washington.

In addition, I would say it's well-documented that newspapers are important for binding us together as a nation, and affirming and supporting our democratic form of government, which is under threat these days. As attorneys general, whose job it is to uphold the rule of law and help defend our democracy, that's a pretty central reason why we're interested in this issue.

Can you give us an example of where a newspaper story might have pointed you in a particular direction?

I was traveling once and I read a newspaper article in a local newspaper out of Phoenix. It talked about how the Motel 6 in that area had turned over to ICE agents, without any warrant, any probable cause, a guest list of all the residents there. That led to ICE agents picking up individuals staying there. Motel 6 said it was only one hotel, but I was suspicious.

I called my civil rights team to see if Motel 6 was doing this here in Washington state. As it turned out, they most certainly were. That led to a lawsuit. That led to them changing their corporate actions. That led to them apologizing and paying $12 million to help compensate people who were harmed by their actions. That all came from one local newspaper in the Phoenix area.

Some people here in Washington may ask why news organizations need tax credits. It's a for-profit business. What would you say to people who don't support this?

What I would say is to look back to the founding fathers. They understood, when our country was just beginning, the importance of supporting, even sometimes financially supporting, our local media. In fact, there were postal credits. Newspapers paid a much lower postal rate in the early days of our nation to support the local media, even though sometimes those newspapers were critical of certain members and supportive of others.

The point was they understood, fundamentally, that for us to thrive as a country, as a democracy and a republic, we need to have a free, independent media. I see a consistency with that in the current efforts in Congress to do something similar.

The letter that you sent had 15 signatures on it. Most came from Democrats. There was one Republican. What does that tell you, that there was just one Republican signature on that letter?

It's unfortunate in a sense. We obviously reached out to every attorney general across the country. Fortunately, the bill in Congress is bipartisan, which I appreciate. For me, I don't look at it as a partisan issue.

There are plenty of newspaper editorials that are critical of me and my work. That comes with the territory of being in elected office. It's not about whether it supports one party or another. It's more about who we are as a people, having an agreed-upon set of facts as a nation, and media, and local media, in particular, help bind us together in that way. I wish it could have been more bipartisan, but welcome other Republican AG’s who still wish to join us in this effort.

Listen to the interview by clicking the play button above.