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106
Facebook ate and then ignored the news industry. It's hard, but we should leave it be (www.abc.net.au)
submitted 5 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
29 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

Try and get past the fact that this is sort-of about Facebook. Because it's more about the demise of news than it is about Facebook, specifically.

news organisations were never in the news business, Amanda Lotz, a professor of media studies at QUT, said.

"They were in the attention-attraction business.

"In another era, if you were an advertiser, a newspaper was a great place to be.

"But now there are just much better places to be."

The moment news moved online, and was "unbundled" from classifieds, sports results, movie listings, weather reports, celebrity gossip, and all the other reasons people bought newspapers or watched evening TV bulletins, the news business model was dead.

News by itself was never profitable, Professor Bruns said.

"Then advertising moved somewhere else.

"This was always going to happen via Facebook or other platforms."

It's a really fascinating read. We can all agree that independent journalism is valuable in our society, but ultimately, most of us don't so much seek news out as much as we encounter news as we go about our day.

I'm sure the TL;DR bot is about to entirely miss the nuance of the article. I recommend reading the whole thing.

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[–] [email protected] 24 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (6 children)

As a former journalist, I agree that a robust news industry is absolutely essential to a functioning democracy. And while that should make it something to support with tax revenue, in the US right now, it’s terrifying even to imagine what Trump 2.0 would do with that control. It isn’t comfortable to think what Biden would do to silence critics who are complicating his re-election campaign.

However, I have to disagree with the professors’ basic premise about the Media Bargaining Code taking money from a profitable business to prop up an unprofitable one. First, news should be viewed as a public service, not a business. Second, Facebook et al. established and grew their ad businesses by relaying journalists’ work; that’s worth something. The fact that FB no longer wants to pay for the content they’re profiting off of is just too damn bad. Third, the complaint about redistributing wealth doesn’t hold water since that’s exactly what the traditional news outlets’ own ad businesses did: transfer wealth from profitable businesses (largely retail and services) to support a less profitable one (journalism producers).

I’m not Australian, so arguably I don’t have a dog in this race. But it doesn’t sit well to watch Facebook rape and pillage an entire vital industry and then just walk away leaving it for dead. They must be held to account.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago)

I think you’re wrong about government funded news. It will always be less biased than privately funded news because democratic governments (even Trump) are held accountable in a way that no private company ever will be.

We definitely shouldn’t get all our news from the government but it’s hardly the horror show Americans seem to think it is. Especially in a democratic country.

Facebook was not built on the backs of journalist has always been about chatting to friends and family first, strangers second, and news a distant third

Facebook has clearly stated they don’t profit off news. I’m inclined to believe them until proven otherwise, especially since I can open the Facebook app and there is literally no news anywhere to be seen.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 5 months ago (1 children)

We already have taxpayer-funded media here the ABC (fully funded) and the SBS (partially funded), if the government invested more into these outlets there would be no need for the utter shit, lies, fear and LNP propaganda put forth by Murdoch, Seven-West and Nine-Fairfax.

An impartial media is essential to a functioning democracy, I agree with that, it's the rich bastards we've got right now that we don't need. We don't need biased opinion pieces, people should be able to think critically and form their own opinions. Not vote for whoever their local Murdoch paper wants them to vote for.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 5 months ago

So long as there’s a strong mechanism to ensure their independence, this is the way to go. We used to have taxpayer-funded journalism (PBS and NPR) in the US. They still exist, but they’re forced to solicit ~~advertisers~~ “underwriters” to keep the lights on thanks to Reagan and Gingrich.

We have Murdoch’s “Fox News” too. I think that man may be evil incarnate. You guys can have him back. :)

[–] [email protected] 5 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Facebook et al. established and grew their ad businesses by relaying journalists’ work

Omg I am getting sick of hearing this lie. No, Facebook does not use journalists' work. The send the newspapers readers. They are adding value to the news orgs by giving them customers. It's ridiculous to double dip by expecting Facebook to also pay for sending them traffic.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 5 months ago (1 children)

We both know that’s not how stereotypical FB users work. They read the news on the platform. Full stop. They didn’t pause doomscrolling to go read the same article on the producers’ websites.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 5 months ago (1 children)

There is no news on Facebook. There are links to news articles.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Which people don’t follow. Hell, they don’t even stop scrolling on Lemmy to click the links.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Lemmy is actually far worse than Facebook*. We often get AI to summarise the article, or even just post direct links to an archived version of the article that bypasses paywalls and/or stops them getting advertising revenue or viewership metrics.

As far as people not following, so? That's not Facebook stealing value from them. It's people deciding that there's no value to them in clicking through. Probably in no small part due to a perceived decline in quality of reporting that means the headline is often all people feel the need to read.

The fact that people see the title and thumbnail and decide not to click through is still not a valid reason to expect Facebook to pay news organisations anything.

* to be more accurate, the culture that has evolved on Lemmy. The platform itself is no better or worse than Facebook.

[–] [email protected] -2 points 5 months ago (2 children)

Friend, good editors are trained to write BLUF headlines. That’s just doing their job. So yes, FB still profits from their work and should pay for it.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Here's a case i hope helps, and is illustrative,

*Think of a newstand, an older style one. Painted dark green, a little kiosk with two stands either side, lets say street side in New York.

The operator of the newstand sets the papers, magazines, et al, out along the racks. Its general practice to face the most eye-catching part of each out towards the eyes of passers-by.

A potential customer stops walking and looks along the rack for a minute, looks at the Washington Post sitting there, maybe The Economist, but settles on the New York Times.

That customer has seen the front page of the Washington Post, maybe even perused The Economist a bit, but they settled on the New York Times.

In that situation are The Economist, and Washington Post entitled to a share of that newstands revenue from selling the New York Times? Afterall that customer did read the front covers, and then a little more of one of the rejected papers.*

Facebook and Google, et al act as today's equivalent of the newstand. The BLUF is no different from any other eye catching material editors/marketers put on their publications/products to generate sales. A marketer is trained to make a sale as enticing as possible, the enticement, in this case the BLUF, is not the product.

The news business might suck at the moment, but the news media bargaining code is not the solution.

Round peg, square hole.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 5 months ago

Interesting analogy, but it doesn't apply. The Economist and Wapo were paid the wholesale rate for their papers whether the vendor sells them, gives them away, lines his birdcage with them, or burns them. Whether he sells them or uses them for decoration is irrelevant. All the Code does is restore that dynamic.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 5 months ago

In case you hadn't seen the BLUF acronym before (I hadn't, so was curious and looked it up), it stands for Bottom Line Up Front and it's about putting the most important information at the beginning of something.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/BLUF_(communication)

[–] [email protected] 5 points 5 months ago (1 children)

I don't disagree with anything you've said here, but at the same time, what is the response?

  1. The Government insists that Facebook pays a royalty for news articles shared on its platform.
  2. Facebook bans news articles on its platform (again) instead of paying anything.
  3. Nobody on Facebook sees news; just disinformation and propaganda.

Facebook already has the engagement they want. While they grew that platform engagement partially from news content, they have it now and no longer need news content. In fact, if the article is to be believed, they no longer want news on their platform.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Maybe make the royalty per user rather than per article. Then there's no incentive to ban news.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago)

A royalty for what though? To display the headline of a news article and the first few words? I hate Facebook as much as anyone on Lemmy but I don't think they owe the media a cent.

We don't need these media outlets anyway, we have the ABC which doesn't need to be profitable. Most print media has extreme political biases which shape public thought by focusing on something to make it seem more common. An example: youth crime in Queensland, the number of offences has been in decline however the media give it disproportionate coverage to make it seem like the government isn't doing enough. They like the LNP, they want the LNP in power. In Queensland Labor are in power, they don't like them, so they lie.

Edit: And how about their lies about Climate Change, the referendum and literally anything. They can go and get fucked

[–] [email protected] 4 points 5 months ago (1 children)

However, I have to disagree with the professors’ basic premise about the Media Bargaining Code taking money from a profitable business to prop up an unprofitable one. First, news should be viewed as a public service, not a business.

That wasn't the professor's point - that was the reporter's. But if you read on, another professor (of media studies) puts it quite aptly:

The reason for this was news organisations were never in the news business, Amanda Lotz, a professor of media studies at QUT, said. "They were in the attention-attraction business. "In another era, if you were an advertiser, a newspaper was a great place to be. "But now there are just much better places to be."

I honestly can't recall how long it's been, but it's been at least decades since there was a newspaper dedicated to just news. It's always been all the other stuff piled in - entertainment reading, comics, crosswords, classifieds, public notices, etc - that made a "news" paper worth reading, as well as the news itself.

This problem is older than Facebook. Facebook is simply the newest face of it.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 5 months ago (1 children)

… Code taking money from a profitable business to prop up an unprofitable one.

That wasn't the professor's point - that was the reporter's.

It seems an accurate reporting of the law, but true. My apologies.

The reason for this was news organisations were never in the news business, Amanda Lotz, a professor of media studies at QUT, said.

Media studies is not journalism. It’s an adjacent field. While she certainly has a point from her perspective, I wouldn’t call it the final arbiter in this case.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Media studies is not journalism

This isn't about journalism. It's about the fact that news orgs can only succeed if they can pay for themselves or be attached to larger money-making machines. That's why most mastheads are owned by large media conglomerates, and those that aren't have to charge subscription fees just to survive.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago)

It seems to be about journalism and fair play. Media studies is tangential to that.

ETA: I take your point. But there are better options than allowing monopolies to emerge.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago)

Personally, I often wonder about the mysterious role of editors....

[–] [email protected] 7 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (2 children)

All of the news where I live is paywalled.

Why should Facebook pay for content that users cannot even access? Surely anyone who is actually paying for access isn't finding articles from Facebook - they are getting the news directly from the source.

The only content that isn't paywalled is from ABC, but their definition of "local" news is national news which happens to be a story about something that happened here. Usually reported on so poorly it's obvious the journalist lives a few thousand kilometres away and doesn't really understand the issue at all.

The state of journalism in Australia is really bad - but I don't think Facebook paying Murdoch did anything at all to fix things. If anything news is even worse now than it was few years ago when the deal was originally signed.

The government needs to go back to the drawing board and re-think their approach. Personally i'd like to see something similar to our health system where we have a national journalism budget dedicated to funding private journalists the same way Medicare funds businesses in the medical industry.

And make sure there are strict rules around ethical journalism and also encourage original reporting - zero funding if you re-hash news broken by someone else.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 5 months ago

I really love the Medicare-esque model idea. It leaves room for journalists to be creative in their approaches, while demanding a minimum level of competency in their reporting. This of course would mean those shaded truths would probably still have to be passed, but the outright lies will be squashed. It also means journalists policing journalists, alla 'media watch' are also included in the funding model.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 5 months ago

Would this mean free news for all residents and citizens and journalist get paid for consumption?

[–] [email protected] 4 points 5 months ago (1 children)

It’s one of the reasons I subscribe to a couple of news outlets, I value the news and someone needs to pay. Most people have forgotten that they used to “buy” newspapers, after all, everything is free on the internet.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 5 months ago (1 children)

The problem with paying for news is that 99% of the time it involves an account and logging in to view the articles. I don't want the news I chose to read to be further monetised by the business, advertisers or data brokers, and I don't want the news org changing what they present to me, or report, based on some analysis of subscriber attention and interaction.

That leaves the < 1% who don't put their articles behind a paywall — even then, the surveillance capitalism of the banking and finance sector means that my donation transaction itself will be sold to data brokers, and from it the news I read can be profiled.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 5 months ago

I click on every single article on the front page into a new tab. I then read (some of) the tabs as I get a minute here or there through the day. I still get the news I want to read, there's nothing to analyze because they don't know which articles I spent more than two seconds on.

(Yes, I know there are ways to measure time on a page, but I don't frequent such sites)

[–] [email protected] 3 points 5 months ago

This is the best summary I could come up with:

It was a hot-and-cold affair that defined over a decade of online publishing and the work experience of a generation of reporters, and has ultimately left the industry a shadow of its former self.

Although it may be tempting for lots of reasons, the Australian government should avoid putting the boot into Meta by enforcing the News Media Bargaining Code as it's threatened to do.

Digital-only media outfits such as BuzzFeed and Vice rode a wave of growth, generating huge numbers of clicks that translated into ad revenue.

"Facebook encouraged news providers onto the platform in the ways it promoted content," Dan Angus, a professor of digital communications at QUT, said.

Instead of breaking up that monopoly, or closing tax loopholes, the Code effectively takes money from a profitable industry (big tech) and distributes it to an unprofitable one (news).

The News Media Bargaining Code is trying to restore a model for financing journalism that has gone the way of the fax machine, the fountain pen, and the pocket address book.

The original article contains 1,402 words, the summary contains 171 words. Saved 88%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!

[–] [email protected] 2 points 5 months ago

Yeah - I read through this a couple of times, and I feel the headline is a bit misleading.

I reckon this problem has been around longer than Facebook. As the second professor put it, news orgs aren't in the news business - they're in the attention-grabbing business.

It's been many, many years (decades) since I remember my old man sitting down and reading a newspaper front to back, then back to front, on a weekend. He read every inch - news, sports, classifieds, public notices. When those things eventually started shifting to digital - in isolation - newspapers (and magazines) started feeling it.

Facebook is simply the newest face they can apply to the problem.