Media is the message

A bit of news snuck in under the mess of commentary on Trump and vaccine rollout this week and you don’t know it yet—but it's ground-breaking and will impact your life from now on.

Google has acquiesced, in part, to the demand by the Australian government on the behalf of news organizations, that Google pay for the right to use what these organizations create.

 

This is the first domino in the social media / information empire universe to fall in the fight for pay by news agencies and journalists.

 

It’s clear, as a journalist, how I will benefit—although maybe not for those who don’t understand how the system works.

 

Most people understand, at least on a surface level, how copyright works—people get paid for the use of their creative work—be it music, words or images—every time it is used. Of course, this doesn’t always happen—this is what that little message before a DVD warns about – piracy. Not that many people are watching DVDs anymore in the age of streaming, but some people may remember what I am talking about – particularly the warnings issued on DVD’s produced by the BBC which are very entertaining in an endearingly British way.

 

Copyright—this likely means little to you, except that it’s a hassle and prevents you from gaining access to the music, movies and books you want. But for the creators, it means bread on the table and a roof over their head.

 

Everyone wants access, but access can’t be free or there will be nothing to access. And while many people see creatives as unemployed or hobbyists, spending nights wrestling the creative muse after their day job; creative fields are the day job and should be recognized as such in the form of remuneration; ie money.  

 

In the news business, it is generally accepted that journalism is a profession. So much so that it has been deemed one of the top reviled professions in North America, right up there with lawyers.

 

What the general public doesn’t know, is there isn’t any form of copyright payment when social media platforms redistribute news media content. And most people probably think that doesn’t matter. But it matters; a lot.

 

If you can get all your news for free, why would you pay for it, and by that, I mean buy a digital or hard copy subscription to a newspaper or magazine. Of course, you wouldn’t. It doesn’t make any sense to pay for something that’s free.

 

But it isn’t really free; nothing is. News is created by journalists and journalists aren’t cobbling it together out of the goodness of their hearts. Although in some cases you’d be willing to do so but then there is the matter of food and shelter which requires some financial gain for the work you do.

 

The day job of journalism is paid for by the media outlet which earns money from advertising and advertising needs eyes—countable eyes.

 

I have to admit that I don’t know that much about the business side of the news industry although I have been part of it for almost 20 years. But I do know that while most people think it is subscriptions that make the money that keeps an organization afloat, it is actually the advertising. And the advertisers want the best value for money. That means eyes on the paper or screen to see the ad which circles back to subscribers.

 

So, in a roundabout way subscribers are what keeps a media outlet above water because without them there are no advertisers.

 

Journalism and news media have been in a transformational period ever since the explosion onto the landscape of social media some 20 to 15 years ago. Independent newspapers, such as the one I work for, have been forced out of business at an alarming rate in the last decade. Even the heavy hitters such The New York Times, The Guardian and the Globe and Mail have been trying to figure out their place in the new media landscape with limited success—or such success so as to drive out smaller papers in the wider market.

 

It comes down money—if the news organizations aren’t paid for their product, they no longer have the means to create it. And you know who doesn’t pay for the news, major internet and social media companies.

 

How many people get their news from stories posted on social media? I would guess most people. Who is paying for it? A very small number of people. That being said, I must add a caveat; sometimes, direction to a news link on social media will result in new subscribers and that is a win for the media company—but I doubt that happens very often for smaller newspapers. Many people are content to read only a headline and never delve deeper into the article which would require them to pay for access.

 

This is an unsustainable model that will result in the collapse of journalism. But now there is hope- the brightest hope for this industry that I have seen since I began my career.

 

Google had threatened to stop providing search results for news organizations in Australia if the government passed a new bill forcing it to pay the country's publishers for the news links and snippets its search engine surfaces. But cooler heads prevailed and with more talk, an agreement was struck. 

 

Today Australians have woken up to less content on their Facebook newsfeeds, as that company has decided to strike back, unfriending Australia before the government passes the law forcing them to pay for content. 

 

The move in Australia, and the PM’s refusal to back down, has been noticed in Canada. This month The Liberal government reiterated its intention to push ahead with legislation forcing Big Tech companies to compensate news outlets for content.

 

I’m feeling a little woozy with all this potential for job security.

 

But the general public, why should they care about this? They might even wonder if it will result in some increase cost to them. The internet is supposed to be free; will that change if tech giants have to pay for news? It’s the rule of thumb that any increase in cost to corporations gets passed on to consumers. So why would Joe Public be in favour of this move?

 

Because despite the amount of vitriol directed at the media lately—especially in the past five years—you need us.

 

Without the media, government and business would not be held accountable, money would be spent in unknown ways, schools would be run according to unknown rules, regulations and curriculums; forest would disappear, people would be deported, and a myriad of other harms would occur or be occurring without witness.

 

The media is the watchdog. A dog that needs to be fed. And food cost money.