Rupert Murdoch, the executive chairman of News Corporation, issued a statement calling for Facebook and Google to subsidize the news traveling through their platforms.
In the statement, Murdoch calls on Facebook to pay a carriage fee, as cable companies do with pay TV, to trusted publishers that are posting their content on the social media platform: I have yet to see a proposal that truly recognizes the investment in and the social value of professional journalism.
The time has come to consider a different route. If Facebook wants to recognize 'trusted' publishers then it should pay those publishers a carriage fee similar to the model adopted by cable companies. The publishers are obviously enhancing the value and integrity of Facebook through their news and content but are not being adequately rewarded for those services.
This comes fresh on the heels of a change to Facebook's News Feed algorithm, which prioritizes posts from friends and family over those from publishers and content providers. Facebook said that the change was meant to increase well-being among users. But Wall Street didn't react well to the change, which Facebook predicted would decrease time spent on the network, which ultimately will decrease the time users spend looking at advertisements.
As part of the announcement, Facebook's News Feed chief Adam Mosseri didn't have many concrete suggestions for publishers worried about decreased visibility on the world's biggest social media platform, simply saying publishers should try "experimenting … and seeing … what content gets more comments, more likes, more reshares."
This also follows an ongoing situation around news credibility on social networks like Facebook. The spread of fake news across the internet, most noticeably on social networks like Facebook and Twitter, may very well have changed the course of the 2016 election. Whether it was sparked and spread by foreign actors like Russia or domestic political groups, it has forced Facebook to try to remedy the situation over the past year. Pew says that around two-thirds of U.S. adults get their news from social media sites. This has disenfranchised many publishers who require a direct connection with readers to maintain credibility. If all articles look the same, and many "readers" are looking at an entirely different "front page" on Facebook, establishing the one and only truth of any matter becomes more difficult. And let's not forget that the media industry is in its own, continued transformation as century-old print publications try to move digital.
Murdoch, one of the most successful people in news media, doesn't see much progress with new business models such as subscriptions and pay walls, but does see an opportunity in making the pipes pay.
An unrealistic proposal
However, on closer inspection his suggestion is disingenuous. To publicly issue a carefully scripted statement with questionable insinuations and very few details on FB is more mud-slinging than muckraking. We're not saying Facebook shouldn't be paying somebody something, but this isn't a realistic solution and I don't think Murdoch really believes it is either.
While it makes sense for cable provider with millions of subscribers in a single region of the U.S., all paying $50 or more for the privilege of watching live TV channels, it's a poor match for the likes of Facebook.
Facebook's “viewers”…
* Are all over the world in different regions and jurisdictions
* Don't choose what they see (nor does Facebook, arguably)
* Pay nothing
* Are already monetized indirectly by both Facebook and publishers
If Facebook pays a carriage fee for the privilege of carrying content from the Hindustan Times, and it shows up as a Facebook Instant Article in an
American's news feed because a British PR firm paid for it to be promoted, because it wants to drive subscribers, and it does… who exactly owes whom what? —Techcrunch.com
