Journalism, like the arts, has seen its business models upended. According to the Pew Research Center, advertising revenue in newspapers “fell from $37.8 billion in 2008 to $14.3 billion in 2018, a 62% decline. Newsroom employment at U.S. newspapers dropped by nearly half (47%) between 2008 and 2018, from about 71,000 workers to 38,000.”
One could find equally dire equivalents in the arts, where artist income has shrunk and jobs have been lost, accelerated by the pandemic. William Deresiewicz‘s book Death of the Artist is replete with examples documenting this. Big Tech, while getting fabulously rich, has disrupted industry after industry, in the process promising a better new world. And in many ways it has delivered. But the dystopian impacts of that “progress” have also become more obvious, and after years of watching, the US Congress finally seems to be in a mood to modify the regulations these companies have been operating under. It’s about time. Those rules were largely written before the internet was around.
While the impact of Big Tech on the arts has been profound, there has not been a lot of organizing to change the rules under which Big Tech operates. That was true also for journalism until recently. But after the rise of social media disinformation and the closing of more than 2000 daily and weekly newspapers across the country over the past ten years, members of Congress from both parties seem ready to enact reforms, from breaking up monopolies to rewriting how information is shared.
One of the most popular measures would force Google and social media platforms to start paying news organizations for linking to their stories. Given the $147 billion in advertising Google earns annually, the money is a tempting target. But it’s exactly the wrong way to try to cure tech’s negative impacts, and it would actually do little to solve journalism’s revenue issues.
You might think this is just a journalism issue, and admittedly it’s not an exact comparison, but one can draw some parallels between paying to read stories an paying for music streaming, which has not proven to “pay off” very well for the vast majority of musicians. I’ve written an explainer on the issue and the complexity and contradictions of trying to get paid for content over at Post Alley.
Journalism used to be much more personal, with a single owner (or family) rooted in the local community. That’s why I find the trend of having local rich people step up to create or buy back a local newspaper, and leapfrogging the existing newspaper by advanced technology. True, this brings the drawback of succession, and it takes courage for local big wallets to dare to defy the local daily. And I recall the advice once given to Craig McCaw: never own a media outlet in your hometown!
Hi Doug, thanks for a nice blog post. I agree that making Google pay for links is not a viable direction. Years ago I read a nice editorial that recognized that journalistic endeavors that tried to gain a broad base were aiming for national/international coverage to the detriment of local news. Thus the key of creating and maintaining a community was dependent on catering to “local” tastes and interests (“community” is no longer necessarily geographically defined). Additionally, unlike decades ago, a large portion of readership wants to respond to journalism, not have it exist as a one-way street with no opportunities for feedback or community discussion.
You also touch on this issue of monopolies. I think there has to be much, much stronger anti-monopolistic efforts on the part of Congress. Merely to eliminate competition should be strongly disallowed (that’s partly why Google and Facebook – among others – have become so powerful). It would be interesting to hear Congressional hearings on this topic since it is clearly a Democrat (break up monopolies) vs. Republican (do all you can to strengthen business activities) issue.
I’ve long felt that the only viable way forward for journalism is a non-profit model, where any financing must be entirely transparent. But that’s another blog post. 🙂