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News made their money through ads. Now no one buys ad real estate on newspapers so they have to serve google adds on their websites which is a fraction of the i

by v4dok 6y ago

News made their money through ads. Now no one buys ad real estate on newspapers so they have to serve google adds on their websites which is a fraction of the income they would get. Google is eating up the lunch of news, so news have to find another way to monetize. Of course, we come slowly but surely to the understanding that News are essential to the society even without generating profit. But who pays the bills?? Government cant without making them depended on them and hence biasing the news. People are not seeing the immediate value since they are spoon fed this clickbait, bigot garbage and they think they are "up to date. Forcing the ads behemoths to share the pie seems like a logical step, although, its ill-executed and ofc the incentive for Google would be to minimize that cost. This game is now getting started.

mrtksn 6y ago
In some countries the government pays the bills in exchange of favourable coverage. How do they pay? The owner gets government contracts in other industries or the government buys ads or issues as public service. In lest corrupt countries but still with corrupt journalistic ethics the news becomes the ads. The entire tech journalism business revolve around this. Give me good reviews and I will send you demo units, I will take you to a camp and will give you real good accommodation and slap a paid promotion video order as an extra. extra governmental political journalism is also not any better. You become a mouthpiece for a political group and the funnel money to sustain your publication. You can tap ads business for the stuff that is not allowed to be openly advertised. For example, in some places where doctors are not allowed to advertise the news channels will offer an interview about certain illness in exchange of payment from the interviewer. The news sites get their content and get paid for it, the doctors get their name on news articles that looks legit journalistic work. It's really unfortunate.
asdfasgasdgasdg 6y ago
But this is the government paying, just with Google serving as the middle man. There's no actual economic linkage here, which means that Google's payments to the news organizations are actually a tax that skips the public coffers and goes straight to the news owners. But it's no different than if the government levied a tax specifically on Google and paid the whole of that tax to the news orgs. Both approaches make an equal amount of economic sense. Personally I think it would make much more sense to raise a general corporate profit tax, and use the proceeds of that tax to pay the news. But there's a convenient devil to extract money from, so there it is.

by v4dok 6y ago

mrtksn 6y ago

In some countries the government pays the bills in exchange of favourable coverage. How do they pay? The owner gets government contracts in other industries or the government buys ads or issues as public service. In lest corrupt countries but still with corrupt journalistic ethics the news becomes the ads. The entire tech journalism business revolve around this. Give me good reviews and I will send you demo units, I will take you to a camp and will give you real good accommodation and slap a paid promotion video order as an extra. extra governmental political journalism is also not any better. You become a mouthpiece for a political group and the funnel money to sustain your publication. You can tap ads business for the stuff that is not allowed to be openly advertised. For example, in some places where doctors are not allowed to advertise the news channels will offer an interview about certain illness in exchange of payment from the interviewer. The news sites get their content and get paid for it, the doctors get their name on news articles that looks legit journalistic work. It's really unfortunate.

asdfasgasdgasdg 6y ago

But this is the government paying, just with Google serving as the middle man. There's no actual economic linkage here, which means that Google's payments to the news organizations are actually a tax that skips the public coffers and goes straight to the news owners. But it's no different than if the government levied a tax specifically on Google and paid the whole of that tax to the news orgs. Both approaches make an equal amount of economic sense. Personally I think it would make much more sense to raise a general corporate profit tax, and use the proceeds of that tax to pay the news. But there's a convenient devil to extract money from, so there it is.