Rep. Jim Jordan slams Journalism Competition and Preservation Act

Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) slammed the Journalism Competition and Preservation Act during a Saturday interview with Breitbart News’ Washington political editor Matt Boyle.

Jordan is the ranking member of the House Judiciary Committee and has consistently remained opposed to JCPA.

According to the official summary of the bill, JCPA would create “a four-year safe harbor from antitrust laws for print, broadcast, or digital news companies to collectively negotiate with online content distributors (e.g., social media companies) regarding the terms on which the news companies’ content may be distributed by online content distributors.”

“This is Big Tech, Big Media, Big Government all colluding to limit who gets defined as a journalist and then to limit the information that we the people get to see,” Jordan said of the legislation.

“Look no further than what has been in the news the last 24 hours, which is what Big Tech, Big Media, Big Government did relative to the Hunter Biden story, for goodness’ sake,” Jordan said.

“This bill would codify the ridiculous things that happened in October of 2020 when… they suppressed that story. And I think you can make a credible argument that in fact made a difference in the election, and but for that, Joe Biden’s not the president.”

He continued, “This bill I think is totally wrong, but number one is how they would define what a journalist is, and then deciding that you form a cartel to go after the other [Big Tech] cartel, but all it’s going to do is get Big Government involved with Big Tech and Big Media in further collusion to censor conservative speech.”

He went on to express his belief that Democrats will add the legislation to an unrelated bill in order to pass it.

“We’ll be in there making the arguments we’ve been talking about here. Again, the New York Times and the Washington Post, they’ll be happy to get together and form a cartel and go and talk with Big Tech, but the independent journalist out there, or smaller startups, or conservative outlets…that’s our concern about how this whole thing will play out,” Jordan said.

He added, “My gut tells me is that their plan is to have the markup, have it out of committee, and then throw it onto something else.”