6 ms·

It's about funding journalism. What's Mike Cannon-Brooke's solution for funding journalism?

renaicirc 6y ago
I'm sorry, but funding media giants is obviously not a good reason to extort search giants. What is the nuance that I am missing?
- clouddrover 6y ago
  Google gets content and advertising revenue, journalists are not getting enough return for their work. It's not sustainable.
  - throwaways885 6y ago
    Maybe news isn't sustainable in the long run anyway. Independent journalists (who CAN survive on 50k-150k in ad revenue) are the future.
    - clouddrover 6y ago
      How? They'll be crushed like bugs by the first lawsuit that comes along. The only way they'd survive is by producing fawning, uncritical reports, like almost every interview done with movie stars.
      - throwaway45349 6y ago
        As long as the courts are fair, there's no problem here.
        clouddrover 6y ago
        Lawsuits cost money. There's nothing but problems here. You're asking them to go bankrupt.
  - renaicirc 6y ago
    If they believe that Google should compensate them then they can already demand that Google stop linking their pages, and then bargain with Google the ordinary way. Why is it fair or necessary to add extra laws here?
    - clouddrover 6y ago
      It's not "belief", it's financial reality.
    - rossjudson 6y ago
      There's no "demand" necessary. Just configuration. Lots of interesting things on Robots meta tag: https://developers.google.com/search/reference/robots_meta_tag https://developers.google.com/search/reference/robots_meta_t...
  - jddj 6y ago
    The journalists doing good work would be almost entirely excluded by this law. This money would go to an organisation which largely peddles outrage and division.
    - clouddrover 6y ago
      > This money would go to an organisation which largely peddles outrage and division. Frankly that's Google, Facebook, and Twitter. They are aimed at maximising engagement and outrage does that for them. They keep feeding people what they think they want to see and the further down the rabbit hole they go the weirder and more extreme it gets.
      - brokenmachine 6y ago
        > Frankly that's Google, Facebook, and Twitter. They are aimed at maximising engagement and outrage does that for them. Please, do a google image search for "daily telegraph cover", and then give me your description of the Murdoch news media.
  - visarga 6y ago
    I don't think Google News displays ads on result pages, just the title + thumbnail. Why should they pay for displaying these links when they don't earn anything on them, it doesn't make business sense. As for news discovered by regular search, I think that is different because the user has to input specific search keywords and restrict to recent results. The difference is about intention and recurring visits. The situation seems similar to the Google Books fiasco, where we didn't end up with a searchable online library of out of print books. Lots of arguments were raised back then as now, but the bottom line was that everyone tried to do good for himself and we all got less - the prisoner's dilemma in action.
    - clouddrover 6y ago
      > it doesn't make business sense If it didn't make business sense then Google wouldn't be showing them in the first place. It plainly does make business sense. Google shouldn't be afraid to pay for what it uses.
      - brokenmachine 6y ago
        If the news sites do not want the traffic, they are perfectly free to use their robots.txt to stop google from scraping. The want to have their cake and eat it too, plus get paid for the privilege. Having said this, I have no sympathy for Google either.
        clouddrover 6y ago
        They aren't perfectly free to do it and that's the point. Read what the ACCC is doing and why it is doing it: https://www.accc.gov.au/media-release/australian-news-media-to-negotiate-payment-with-major-digital-platforms https://www.accc.gov.au/media-release/australian-news-media-...
        brokenmachine 6y ago
        Nothing in that link that I can see prevents the news businesses from excluding themselves from being scraped by google using robots.txt. Well, nothing except for the fact that their own sites are not compelling enough for customers in order to be profitable, so they don't want to do it.
- brokenmachine 6y ago
  You're not missing anything and there's no nuance. It's a blatant moneygrab for fossils from a government they have by the balls. The classified ads have dried up and they're out of ideas.
stephen_g 6y ago
Are you Australian? Because I'd be a little surprised if you'd be saying that if you had a lot of exposure to our media.. Especially given the quality (or lack thereof) of our mainstream "news" sources, and the fact that this specifically cuts out ABC, SBS or most independent sources... 70% of the commercial media here is controlled by one American company, and perhaps not coincidentally they have a very close relationship with the Government. The Government has literally just given their cable network $40 million dollars over the last few budgets, completely un-tendered and without any reporting requirements or anything, to "help advance women's sport" - even though 75% of Australians aren't subscribers and SBS would be a better venue for such content...
- clouddrover 6y ago
  > Because I'd be a little surprised if you'd be saying that given the quality of our mainstream "news" sources So your solution is to make them even worse by letting Google bleed them dry? What percentage of Australian's news reading goes through Google? What percentage of Australia's advertising spend does Google command?
  - stephen_g 6y ago
    Sure. Let them die - that ship has sailed. News Ltd and Nine have destroyed most of the quality journalism on their platforms already, and I honestly don't think anything this bill proposes will make it better. I don't have all the answers, but the best way I think I can support quality journalism is to subscribe to some independent news sites now (Michael West, MacroBusiness, Anthony Klan's new site The Klaxon. Might think about Crikey too because it seems pretty good).
    - clouddrover 6y ago
      You mean those journalists who spent decades working for News Corp papers? Michael West did. Anthony Klan did. Anthony Klan is proud of his News Corporation Australia journalist of the year awards. Seems like News Corp helped them both get started. Why shouldn't News Corp continue to fund others as well?
nl 6y ago
It's about funding media organisations. There's nothing in the terms that means the money goes to hiring journalists at all.
- clouddrover 6y ago
  Who do you think hires journalists?
asdfasgasdgasdg 6y ago
Could do like the UK does with the BBC and fund it via ordinary taxes. It seems like a relatively simple solution.
- throwaway45349 6y ago
  Except for the Defund the BBC movement that's going on right now... I'm skeptical any government funded broadcaster is sustainable when it just turns into a propaganda outlet for the establishment.
  - asdfasgasdgasdg 6y ago
    I'm not super familiar with UK politics but it looks like this movement raised something like 45k british pounds on gofundme? Seems pretty fringe. I guess the BBC will remain funded.
    - throwaway45349 6y ago
      The actual org is small, but it's caused thousands to pull their license fee, which is no small sum of money for the Beeb. It's not like they're rolling in profit.
      - asdfasgasdgasdg 6y ago
        There are around 65 million UK residents. Even if thousands pull their license fee it's not gonna move the needle that much. And if it did move the needle, I suspect the government would address the issue by enforcing the license fee more aggressively, or by doing the sensible thing and funding the BBC via the general fund.
        throwaway45349 6y ago
        They can't legally enforce it because the BBC guy has no special power to inspect your telly set and it's not technically a tax (as long as you don't consume BBC content). They also include YouTube/iPlayer consumption of BBC so it's unenforceable on a technical level too. They've tried to scare people into compliance since the 50s: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TV_detector_van https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TV_detector_van

I'm sorry, but funding media giants is obviously not a good reason to extort search giants. What is the nuance that I am missing?

clouddrover 6y ago
Google gets content and advertising revenue, journalists are not getting enough return for their work. It's not sustainable.
- throwaways885 6y ago
  Maybe news isn't sustainable in the long run anyway. Independent journalists (who CAN survive on 50k-150k in ad revenue) are the future.
  - clouddrover 6y ago
    How? They'll be crushed like bugs by the first lawsuit that comes along. The only way they'd survive is by producing fawning, uncritical reports, like almost every interview done with movie stars.
    - throwaway45349 6y ago
      As long as the courts are fair, there's no problem here.
      - clouddrover 6y ago
        Lawsuits cost money. There's nothing but problems here. You're asking them to go bankrupt.
- renaicirc 6y ago
  If they believe that Google should compensate them then they can already demand that Google stop linking their pages, and then bargain with Google the ordinary way. Why is it fair or necessary to add extra laws here?
  - clouddrover 6y ago
    It's not "belief", it's financial reality.
  - rossjudson 6y ago
    There's no "demand" necessary. Just configuration. Lots of interesting things on Robots meta tag: https://developers.google.com/search/reference/robots_meta_tag https://developers.google.com/search/reference/robots_meta_t...
- jddj 6y ago
  The journalists doing good work would be almost entirely excluded by this law. This money would go to an organisation which largely peddles outrage and division.
  - clouddrover 6y ago
    > This money would go to an organisation which largely peddles outrage and division. Frankly that's Google, Facebook, and Twitter. They are aimed at maximising engagement and outrage does that for them. They keep feeding people what they think they want to see and the further down the rabbit hole they go the weirder and more extreme it gets.
    - brokenmachine 6y ago
      > Frankly that's Google, Facebook, and Twitter. They are aimed at maximising engagement and outrage does that for them. Please, do a google image search for "daily telegraph cover", and then give me your description of the Murdoch news media.
- visarga 6y ago
  I don't think Google News displays ads on result pages, just the title + thumbnail. Why should they pay for displaying these links when they don't earn anything on them, it doesn't make business sense. As for news discovered by regular search, I think that is different because the user has to input specific search keywords and restrict to recent results. The difference is about intention and recurring visits. The situation seems similar to the Google Books fiasco, where we didn't end up with a searchable online library of out of print books. Lots of arguments were raised back then as now, but the bottom line was that everyone tried to do good for himself and we all got less - the prisoner's dilemma in action.
  - clouddrover 6y ago
    > it doesn't make business sense If it didn't make business sense then Google wouldn't be showing them in the first place. It plainly does make business sense. Google shouldn't be afraid to pay for what it uses.
    - brokenmachine 6y ago
      If the news sites do not want the traffic, they are perfectly free to use their robots.txt to stop google from scraping. The want to have their cake and eat it too, plus get paid for the privilege. Having said this, I have no sympathy for Google either.
      - clouddrover 6y ago
        They aren't perfectly free to do it and that's the point. Read what the ACCC is doing and why it is doing it: https://www.accc.gov.au/media-release/australian-news-media-to-negotiate-payment-with-major-digital-platforms https://www.accc.gov.au/media-release/australian-news-media-...
        brokenmachine 6y ago
        Nothing in that link that I can see prevents the news businesses from excluding themselves from being scraped by google using robots.txt. Well, nothing except for the fact that their own sites are not compelling enough for customers in order to be profitable, so they don't want to do it.
brokenmachine 6y ago
You're not missing anything and there's no nuance. It's a blatant moneygrab for fossils from a government they have by the balls. The classified ads have dried up and they're out of ideas.

stephen_g 6y ago

Are you Australian? Because I'd be a little surprised if you'd be saying that if you had a lot of exposure to our media.. Especially given the quality (or lack thereof) of our mainstream "news" sources, and the fact that this specifically cuts out ABC, SBS or most independent sources... 70% of the commercial media here is controlled by one American company, and perhaps not coincidentally they have a very close relationship with the Government. The Government has literally just given their cable network $40 million dollars over the last few budgets, completely un-tendered and without any reporting requirements or anything, to "help advance women's sport" - even though 75% of Australians aren't subscribers and SBS would be a better venue for such content...

clouddrover 6y ago
> Because I'd be a little surprised if you'd be saying that given the quality of our mainstream "news" sources So your solution is to make them even worse by letting Google bleed them dry? What percentage of Australian's news reading goes through Google? What percentage of Australia's advertising spend does Google command?
- stephen_g 6y ago
  Sure. Let them die - that ship has sailed. News Ltd and Nine have destroyed most of the quality journalism on their platforms already, and I honestly don't think anything this bill proposes will make it better. I don't have all the answers, but the best way I think I can support quality journalism is to subscribe to some independent news sites now (Michael West, MacroBusiness, Anthony Klan's new site The Klaxon. Might think about Crikey too because it seems pretty good).
  - clouddrover 6y ago
    You mean those journalists who spent decades working for News Corp papers? Michael West did. Anthony Klan did. Anthony Klan is proud of his News Corporation Australia journalist of the year awards. Seems like News Corp helped them both get started. Why shouldn't News Corp continue to fund others as well?

nl 6y ago

It's about funding media organisations. There's nothing in the terms that means the money goes to hiring journalists at all.

clouddrover 6y ago
Who do you think hires journalists?

asdfasgasdgasdg 6y ago

Could do like the UK does with the BBC and fund it via ordinary taxes. It seems like a relatively simple solution.

throwaway45349 6y ago
Except for the Defund the BBC movement that's going on right now... I'm skeptical any government funded broadcaster is sustainable when it just turns into a propaganda outlet for the establishment.
- asdfasgasdgasdg 6y ago
  I'm not super familiar with UK politics but it looks like this movement raised something like 45k british pounds on gofundme? Seems pretty fringe. I guess the BBC will remain funded.
  - throwaway45349 6y ago
    The actual org is small, but it's caused thousands to pull their license fee, which is no small sum of money for the Beeb. It's not like they're rolling in profit.
    - asdfasgasdgasdg 6y ago
      There are around 65 million UK residents. Even if thousands pull their license fee it's not gonna move the needle that much. And if it did move the needle, I suspect the government would address the issue by enforcing the license fee more aggressively, or by doing the sensible thing and funding the BBC via the general fund.
      - throwaway45349 6y ago
        They can't legally enforce it because the BBC guy has no special power to inspect your telly set and it's not technically a tax (as long as you don't consume BBC content). They also include YouTube/iPlayer consumption of BBC so it's unenforceable on a technical level too. They've tried to scare people into compliance since the 50s: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TV_detector_van https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TV_detector_van