As scrutiny into the practices of large tech firms increases, the House Judiciary Antitrust Subcommittee on Tuesday held a hearing on the impact platforms like Google and Facebook have on the media.
“All of these companies say the right things ー and they’ve put some charitable money behind trying to make publishers happy,” David Chavern, the president and CEO of the News Media Alliance, told Cheddar after testifying at the hearing. “We don’t need or want charity. What we want is a sustainable business relationship. And we haven’t gotten there yet.”
The News Media Alliance, formerly known as the Newspaper Association of America, is a trade association that represents about 2,000 newspapers in North America. Others who testified at the hearing included David Pitofsky, general counsel for News Corp and Sally Hubbard, the director of enforcement strategy at the Open Markets Institute.
At the hearing, lawmakers discussed the online advertising market, fact-checking, and fake news, among other topics.
Journalism, and even digital-first outlets, have for years struggled to sustain profitable business models. Outlets have typically relied on a combination of ad-revenue and subscriptions, but social media platforms and search engines, namely Facebook ($FB) and Google ($GOOGL), have forced publishers to compete with free content available across the entire internet, and not just their media peers.
Newsroom jobs have declined by nearly a quarter in the past decade, according to Pew.
Meanwhile, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reports that since the start of the millennium, newspaper industry jobs more broadly have been cut by half.
The power of tech platforms has motivated some politicians, and some journalists, to call for their breakup (though that may not be the only antitrust remedy available).
There’s also proposed legislation for the journalism industry specifically, titled the Journalism Competition and Preservation Act, that would allow news organizations to organize collectively against large tech companies without facing pricing collusion violations themselves.
"Companies like Facebook and Google swallow up 60 percent of digital ad revenue, and so it doesn't leave much of the pie for the actual content creators, and for news publishers, which is why I got laid off in January, it's why local newspapers are going under," Laura Bassett, a former culture and political reporter for nearly 10 years at HuffPost, told Cheddar Tuesday.
The News Media Alliance has estimated that Google makes $4.7 billion from news every year, a number, which gained attention through a New York Times article just before the hearing.
But the Alliance’s calculations have faced pushback from media commentators and outlets like Nieman Lab and Intelligencer, since the eye-opening figure appears to be based on a single quote from 2008 from then Google vice president Marissa Mayer.
In an email to Cheddar, a Google spokesperson called these numbers “inaccurate” and “back of the envelope calculations.” The company argues that the study ignored what Google provides news sources, such as driving clicks ー Google says around 10 billion ー to publisher websites, which help develop outlets’ subscriptions and ad businesses.
“If you don’t like the study, there's two things that could happen. One, Google could actually — they have the information — they could reveal whatever they think the number is. Or, if somebody has a critique, talk about how else you could get at the number,” said Chavern. “But some of the critique seems to imply that we shouldn’t even ask, and I don’t get that at all.”
A Gallup poll finds that now 7.1% of American adults identify as LGBTQ, jumping from 3.5% in 2012. The increase is driven by Generation-Z – those born between 1997 and 2003 – of whom one out of five identify as LGBTQ. Cheddar News speaks with Washington Blade reporter Chris Johnson about the significant shift.
As the Biden administration continues to see the potential for an imminent invasion of Ukraine after contradictory reports of a Russian troop pullback or buildup, Rep. Ami Bera (D-Calif. 7th District), a member of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs, joined Cheddar News to give his insight into the tense situation. "When I was in Ukraine a couple of weeks ago and we were talking with the Ukrainian leadership with President Zelensky, they said we ought to approach Vladimir Putin as though he was a poker player," he said. "So this could be one of those head fakes where he's saying one thing and doing another thing."
The Biden Administration has now issued new guidelines when it comes to carbon capture. The new guidelines handed down this week encouraged the widespread use of climate attacks that traps and stores carbon emissions. The goal here is the process would help keep carbon out of the atmosphere without requiring a whole lot of change by big companies and manufacturing plants. Several scientists say that this method would be crucial to help us decrease the use of carbon emissions by the year 2050. Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Stanford University, Mark Jacobson, joined Cheddar to discuss more.
Natalie Fertig, federal cannabis policy reporter for Politico Pro, joins Cheddar News to discuss the latest in marijuana legalization in the United States.
The Biden administration is launching a new task force to promote the use of 'cleaner' construction materials with lower life cycle emissions. This comes as the White House works to speed up government purchases of greener products. Sweta Chakraborty, climate change expert and U.S. president of "We Don't Have Time," joins Cheddar News to discuss.
Due to the staffing shortages of teachers in New Mexico, the state has been encouraging its National Guard members to fill in as licensed substitutes to keep schools open. Kurt Steinhaus, New Mexico secretary of education, joined Cheddar News to explain the state's stopgap measure amid its lack of teaching professionals. "The first thing they have to go through a fingerprint background check, just like any other substitute new Mexico. The second thing they have to do is go through some online training, and then we provided some in-person professional development about classroom management," Steinhaus explained about the qualifications process.
With contradictory reports about Russian troops pulling back or being added to the border with Ukraine and the expulsion of a U.S. diplomat from Russia, tensions in the region appear to be escalating. Jack Detsch, a Pentagon and national security reporter for Foreign Policy, joined Cheddar News to break down the situation. "Certainly a different tone out of Moscow today and a different tone out of the West. Even as the Kremlin has made the case that troops are moving back, the U.S. is saying that is certainly not the case with the satellite imagery that we have pouring in," he said.
New York City's famous subway system is currently facing scrutiny after several recent attacks on platforms. Now, local leaders in the Big Apple are calling on the MTA. To step in and take action.
