Thread by @jeffjarvis

Oh FFS, no, the news business crushed itself by relying on protectionism over innovation.
@benyt goes all Murdoch & endorses Australia's digital Stamp Act.
This isn't media criticism. It's lobbying.
"Big Tech Has Crushed the News Business" nytimes.com/2020/05/10/bus…

It's as if @benyt never worked at BuzzFeed, a company that built its one-time fortune exploiting the internet reality about which he is now willfully ignorant. No, Google & FB are not taking content; they are sending audience to publishers unable to build valued relationships.

Of course, he writes this from the safety of one of the companies -- like WaPo & WSJ -- that get virtually all the subscription revenue to be had in the U.S. Maybe they should share some with the Cleveland Plain Dealer, eh?

By the logic of this lobbying campaign, PanAm should still be paying Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Railroad. Tesla should be paying Exxon. The entitlement.

I'm on record saying Facebook succumbing to the blackmail of Murdoch and the pols in his pocket is a bad idea. This will not save the old, dying news industry. It will only delay its death.
medium.com/whither-news/t…

What bullshit: "...most news executives in this country share a viewpoint on the platforms, having seen them pull advertising dollars from the news business and spread misinformation at the expense of professional journalism."

Those ad dollars were not given by God to news companies. Those companies were not prepared for competition in a new reality. Their customers were prepared to find a better deal, though. For too long, local news companies exploited their monopolies & now they pay the price.

And @benyt damned well knows that the platforms do more than distribute disinformation. He spent some years getting them to distribute his news and his colleagues' banal listicles. How dare he reduce the net to a Murdochian meme? I am so disappointed.

Ben: "Even as the platforms employ armies of powerful lobbyists, politicians remain eager to please the press that covers them."
Me: Even as news organizations employ a few pathetic lobbyists, they remain eager to please the politicians they should cover seeking protectionism.

Ben: "Google’s proud defiance and lectures about technology now come across as a blend of arrogance and naïveté."
Me: Look in the mirror, Ben.

Ben: "But in this dire moment, the news business is starting to win some political battles."
Me: In this entirely predictable and avoidable moment, the news business has cashed in all its political capital and sold its soul to lose the battle for the trust of the public.

BTW, as a matter of reporting, I'm surprised that other than perfunctory efforts to email a Google exec he slams and inserting a quote from another, @benyt does not go to the effort to find some who would disagree with his line. It wouldn't be hard.

I find it odd that @benyt says Google is far behind in working with news orgs. Everyone I know would say Google has done a good job building relationships there & Facebook is doing well catching up. Facebook would say that. The only place I hear what Ben says: Murdoch + Springer

Springer has played Facebook off Google for a few years and Murdoch is saying nice things about Facebook only after cashing its checks. It doesn't take much sophistication to see the game here.

This is not just the Murdoch/Springer company line. It also became BuzzFeed's company line after years spent exploiting and enjoying the dynamics of the net for mememoney. Then, suddenly, when its fortunes sank, BuzzFeed stuck out its tin plate and whined:

So now the Axis powers of Old Media -- Murdoch, Springer, BuzzFeed -- ally with the politicians they should be covering -- who are also threatened by the new -- to try to blackmail the Gutenbergs & Caxtons & Franklins of our age to pay their new Stamp Tax. We've seen this before.

Note well that newspapers were once the cocky new kids. To quote James Gordon Bennett of the New York Herald: "Books have had their day--the theaters have had their day--the temple of religion has had its day....

Bennett: "...A newspaper can be made to take the lead of all these in the great movements of human thought & human civilization. A newspaper can send more souls to heaven, & save more from Hell, than all the churches or chapels in New York--besides making money at the same time."

I was going to get to this in the flow but since Ben asks I will insert disclosure: I receive nothing personally from any tech company. My school has raised money from Facebook & Google to pay for training, scholarships, and--wait for it--grants to news organizations.

Pardon me while I take a moment to reread Areopagitica.

In the intermission I give you this, sent by a friend, to compare and contrast:

So now let me address what Ben asks me to: Working with platforms. I believe we must, for the public we wish to serve is there, for they know how to succeed on the net better than we do (WWGD?), for we can do much in collaboration, for we have much to learn.

So I helped raise money for my school from platforms. I receive nothing personally. What does the money do? NewsQ is a project to define quality in news so that platforms will make more informed decisions in promoting and placing ads on quality journalism. This to help journalism

Also, the News Integrity Initiative supported important efforts in fighting disinformation, like First Draft, Data & Society, and the European Journalism Center. Now it is funding training to make more journalists able to build product on the net. This to help journalism.

I have long tried to build bridges between the news and tech industry and, indeed, between the platforms themselves for the sake of reinventing news for a new reality. This to help journalism.

I was not in favor of direct payments to news companies from the platforms because I thought it would give them false comfort and I wanted something much more valuable: Help in rethinking the form and strategy of the news industry.

This is why I now oppose government-imposed fees to the news industry: because it's nonsensical, because the companies demanding money do not deserve it. If money's going to go anywhere, it should go to innovators who will reinvent journalism.

I can predict precisely what will happen with government-imposed fees or handouts: It will go to the companies that deserve to die, leaving no room for those who should be born. Even in Canada:

https://twitter.com/JesseBrown/status/1259505401256706048

I'm not opposed to regulation. We already have regulation. I am part of a Transatlantic High-Level Working Group on Content Moderation and Freedom of Expression. Its report with a new framework for the regulatory discussion will come out imminently.

What this discussion is about in the end is freedom: of speech and, by the way, of the press. For the news industry and its agents to gang up with government to disadvantage the platforms where at long those ignored by mass media can be heard is abhorrent.