Am I missing something here? A new law in California limits freelance journalists to writing 35 articles a year. I know a couple of freelancers and given the articles are paid by the word they write more pieces than that a month just to pay the bills. All I can see happening from this is an exodus of freelancers.
https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/everybody-is-freaking-freelance-writers-scramble-make-sense-new-california-law-1248195
California eh...? Bizarre... 
really?
AB5 is basically just a law (and wider than journalism) that stops employers misclassifying employees as self employed (so they can dodge their obligations)
More about it here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_Assembly_Bill_5_(2019)
I suspect that there are going to be more problems with the law and the damage to the freelance journalism industry is only the first one to be realised. Anyone with even half a brain would be able to see that limiting the number of articles a freelancer is allowed to write is going to catastrophically impact their income so I can't imagine it is going to be the only way they have buggered it up.
if you're writing more than 35 articles for one publication you're not really a freelancer, you're an employee colluding with the employer to gain an unfair advantage over publications and writers that do it honestly
Did I mention that faux self employed fiddles make my blood boil? No one ever let me claim my cost of getting to work off my tax, no one ever let me pay a reduced stamp and still claim NHS care and a state pension, no one ever let me claim cost of my clothes as tax deductible expenses etc etc
When I had my business in UK claimed 3rd bedroom as office ....... 
But that can be OK
A base issue is that developed nation governments just love making vote winning social promises and then burdening honest employers with the cost and effort of implementing them. Gives a huge incentive for dishonest employers to pressure or connive with what really are employees to lie that they're not. Result: legislation like California's AB5 to balance the playing field a bit
The problem with the AB5 approach to freelance journalists makes no sense. All that is going to happen is that the news companies based in California will employ freelancers from out of the state which bypasses the law. There have already been over 7000 job losses in the American news media industry so far this year, how does that help those living in California because it's not going to force the companies to employ them full time.
Doesn't work as I read it. There's no geographical limitation. If a publication uses the same supposed freelancer in say New York 36 times then it is the publication that has to treat them as an employee
And the law isn't really a change, it just codifies an existing court decision
The real solution is to make governments find the cost of their social promises through taxes they have to defend at the ballot box and not this idiot burdening of the good employers for daring to give people jobs
