EXCLUSIVE – Sen. Tom Cotton: JCPA Media Cartel Bill Will ‘Sideline Conservative News’

As the Senate Judiciary committee prepares once again to resurrect the Journalism Competition and Preservation Act (JCPA), a bill that would create a cartel of legacy media companies empowered to collude with Silicon Valley, Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR) is reminding Republicans of the bill’s many flaws.

“Democrats want you to believe this bill would protect ‘journalism,'” said Sen. Cotton in an exclusive comment to Breitbart News.

“What they don’t tell you, of course, is that it would largely benefit left-wing outlets while leaving independent conservative media out in the cold.”

“Republicans shouldn’t fall for this latest attempt to sideline conservative news.”

The JCPA was added to the markup agenda for this week’s meeting of the Senate Judiciary Committee, meaning the Committee is like to vote on an updated version of the bill next week.

The bill aims to transfer wealth from Silicon Valley to the discredited and distrusted corporate legacy media. Beyond the financial payouts, the bill allows media companies to form a “joint negotiating entity”—a cartel, immune from antitrust law—to negotiate with Big Tech companies on the “terms and conditions” for carrying their content.

Legacy media companies already receive billions of dollars in voluntary payments from the tech companies, while their competitors in the independent media are frequently demonetized and suppressed by those same companies simply for discussing controversial topics.

Not only does the bill force even more handouts from Silicon Valley to the legacy media, it also enables even more censorship of their competition.

Sen. Cotton has been one of the staunchest opponents of the JCPA as Democrats and their RINO allies tried repeatedly to pass the bill throughout the 177th Congress. His opposition helped prevent a last-ditch effort by JCPA proponents to attach it to last year’s annual defense spending bill.

“[The JCPA] certainly shouldn’t have been used as the Democrats were trying to use it, as a negotiating chip for ending the COVID vaccine mandate on our troops,” said Sen. Cotton shortly after the NDAA effort failed.

In previous comments to Breitbart News, Sen. Cotton rebutted the media lobby’s argument that this is simply a bill to help small newspapers.

“It would empower anything but small companies, like companies that are reporting on genuine local news — crime, courthouse, school boards, and local sports. It would empower the Big Tech companies and these left-wing outfits that are really just designed to push ideological goals, not to promote news gathering in our communities across the state of Arkansas.”

Allum Bokhari is the senior technology correspondent at Breitbart News. He is the author of #DELETED: Big Tech’s Battle to Erase the Trump Movement and Steal The Election.