Mark Zuckerberg Says Facebook Could Pay for ‘High-Quality News’ – Should It?

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Funding credible journalism and sharing data with media outlets would back CEO’s claim “news is incredibly important to society and democracy,” experts say


Facebook’s relationship with the media might be shifting once again, after chief executive Mark Zuckerberg said the social-media giant is looking at funding “high-quality news” that would be prominently displayed on its massive platform. Zuckerberg, in an interview posted to his Facebook page on Monday, told Axel Springer chief Mathias Döpfner that the social network could “potentially have a direct relationship with publishers to make sure that their content is available, if it’s really high-quality content.” He added that Facebook is exploring building a dedicated tab to feature select news stories, something that sounds familiar to Google’s “news” tab. Would this be a good move, not only for Facebook, but for publishers — many of whom that are clinging to the ropes like a  punch-drunk boxer — as well? “The idea of bringing high-quality news to Facebook is a great one. I think we can all agree there needs to be more high-quality news circulating on Facebook. As with any situation, the devil is in the details,” Susan McGregor, assistant director for the Tow Center for Digital Journalism at Columbia University, said. “The question is really how is high-quality news going to be determined, how are publishers going to be compensated, and would such a model prove sustainable to the creation of high-quality news in the long run.” Those questions are worth further examination. First, if this sounds familiar, that’s because it is. Facebook has experimented with paying publishers before, shelling out millions of dollars for BuzzFeed to broadcast on Facebook Live a few years ago, before signing deals with several publishers, including Vox Media, to provide video news in 2017. But those attempts failed to gain much traction with Facebook’s audience — now at 2.2 billion users around the world — and suggested it may have trouble determining what constitutes “high-quality;” signing well-known publishers simply wasn’t enough. “The real question is if Zuckerberg has come to a new understanding of quality,” David Cohn, senior director at Advanced Digital, said. “You can’t fake it until you make it. You just need to pay for it.” What Facebook determines to be “high-quality” content remains to be seen, but the experts agree paying for strong news would be a welcome change for the company. Less than a year ago, Zuckerberg said while he thinks “news is incredibly important to society and democracy,” he wasn’t convinced that Facebook should pay outlets a licensing fee for their work. “I’m not sure that makes sense,” Zuckerberg said. For years, Facebook’s main selling point to publishers has been: Our firehose pushes a stream of eyeballs your way that you otherwise wouldn’t have. In turn, Facebook has continued to gobble up an increasingly larger share of online ad revenue — with the company taking in more than $55 billion last year. At the same time, the media industry has been decimated, with layoffs hitting a 10-year peak. There’s a bit of cruel irony at play here: Zuckerberg said he’s willing to pay for quality content at a time when readers are trained to expect their news for free. “If [Facebook is] willing to pay for content, that’s a good thing,” Dan Hicks, former NBC reporter and current University of Miami journalism professor, said. “But as we know, the price of that content is continuing to go down, because consumers and subscribers don’t necessarily see the value in traditional news output.” This was made evident last week, when Apple launched its News+ magazine subscription service which grabs 50 percent of the revenue from its partners — and none of its readership data. Publishers — with a select few outliers, like The New York Times and The Washington Post —  don’t have enough juice to negotiate with Silicon Valley. But that creates an opportunity for Facebook to separate itself a bit here, McGregor argued, by offering “not just appropriate financial compensation but also providing appropriate data feedback.” Data is just as vital as the money being paid to outlets, McGregor said, because “an external platform is never going to offer sufficient revenue to fully sustain a news organization.” Providing readership data would foster “high-quality news” and let Zuckerberg put his money where his mouth is by giving publishers a look at what content is truly resonating. This two-pronged approach could be the foundation for a healthier relationship between tech giants and the media, after years of outlets investing time, money and resources into partnerships with social media companies that “can change at any time,” McGregor said. This arrangement wouldn’t be a mere act of benevolence on Zuckerberg’s part, either. There are strong business and public relations cases to be made for Facebook funding “high-quality news.” The company has been roundly criticized for allowing Russian trolls to spread misinformation during the 2016 U.S. election — something its taken several steps towards weeding out in the last two years. Still, fake news continues to thrive on Facebook. Between January and March, the site’s fifth-most commented post was an erroneous story, with more than 450,000 comments, proclaiming “Henry Winkler Dead at 77 — A Huge Trump Supporter and Lifelong Gun Lover” from ConservativeTears.com. A news tab featuring high-end journalism would combat misinformation and help millions of users that get their news directly from Facebook. As for whether users should get 1984 vibes from Facebook picking and choosing what news is worth highlighting, the experts felt those concerns are unwarranted. Cohn pointed out Facebook’s algorithm already prioritizes what users see, and Hicks said it wouldn’t stop users from finding stories they want online elsewhere. “What Facebook and Google have become is newsstands, where users can pickup a copy of a newspaper or magazine. That’s it. They’re not acting as a gateway for what kind of information people can have,” Hicks said. “The fact [Facebook is] willing to pay to have magazines and newspapers on the newsstand is healthy for the publishers, because that does need to happen. There does need to be a new model where people pay for the media they consume.”

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