Mainstream media is proving it doesn’t deserve the Meta money
The media bargaining code was flawed from the start. Meta has quit the agreement as a result. The hysterical, hyperbolic outrage coming from big media now proves they are right to do so. Will Hayward, CEO of Private Media, explains.
The bargaining code had some good intentions. It has been clear for a while that the free market alone won’t support public interest journalism. If you think holding power to account matters, and one of the best ways to do so is having journalists dig into the affairs of companies, politicians and the rich and powerful, you should be concerned.
As noted in the original ACCC report from 2019, between 2008 and 2018, over 100 local and regional newspapers closed. Between 2006 and 2016, there was a 9% reduction in working journalists in Australia.
And the trends don’t appear to be getting any better. Look only over at our cousins in the states. Jeff Bezos, a man who knows a thing or two about how the internet works, bought The Washington Post just over ten years ago. He was clear from the start that whilst he was prepared to invest, he wanted it to be self-sustaining. Last year, it was reported the Post lost $100 million. It subsequently made 240 redundancies.
We’ve seen similar changes in Australia, with every major commercial media company making redundancies in the last year.
So we ended up with the bargaining code, a mechanism that required the two largest tech companies, Meta and Google, to pay media companies a fee (including Private Media, the company I work for). The idea was that these two companies “steal” content from media companies, and so should pay them for it. This was a line that I first heard made by Rupert Murdoch over ten years ago.
I’m yet to meet a media executive under 70 who doesn’t snigger at this statement. Of course there is no theft – media companies do everything they can to get their content to feature as heavily as possible in the feeds and search results of both companies. Whilst the value flows both ways, certainly for Meta, most of the value comes back to the media owner.
But big media got what it wanted – it used its power, access and influence to get government to act in its favour, turning Murdoch’s funny line into actual real world legislation. The support of public interest journalism would be outsourced to Google and Meta executives to negotiate behind closed doors in confidential contracts, rumoured to be around $200 million in total, with no obligation to invest the funds in journalism.
And now Meta has decided it wants out. It will not renew the reported $70 million it pays into the news eco-system, and as a result it seems likely that within months, Australians won’t be able to access news on Facebook, or perhaps even Instagram or WhatsApp.
Meta and other big tech struggled in 2022
And this entirely predictable result has been matched by an entirely predictable reaction from those same big media companies. The Australian put Zuckerberg on their front cover the next day, with the headline “Tech Tyrant Goes to War with Australia”. It made the front page of The Age, The SMH and the AFR.
Additional reporting from the AFR detailed the “onerous” terms of one such deal, and what Meta “demanded” in exchange for the $14 million that the media company would receive – a deal that was, I’m sure, the highest margin deal the company had ever done. Oh, the champagne corks that would have popped.
But so goes things in Australia. What the code never addressed, by design, was media diversity. We live in a country where, by one measure, only China and Egypt have a more concentrated media market. In absence of diversity, there is nobody to check the abuse of power from the big media companies. And if Meta ends up quitting Australia, the bigger companies will be fine; indeed, they might even become more profitable as they finally recoup the classified money that started this whole process, with automotive and real estate advertisers forced back onto the highly profitable sites those same media companies have owned this whole time.
But it could be an extinction level event for independent media.
And so we watch as the lobbying of government continues via their front pages, and the farce that is the media code will continue to absolve the government of any real responsibility to genuinely support public interest journalism in Australia, big and small outlet alike.
Perhaps we should do this properly. A levy on big tech, expanded beyond just Google and Facebook. An entirely independent body, with no influence from the government of the day, administers the funds to those investing in genuine journalism. Include a weighting to recognise that independent media is hard, but media plurality is a benefit in and of itself, and something desperately needed in Australia.
Either way, Meta has decided it doesn’t want to prop this all up anymore. Hence the fury. Hence the fire. But let’s be clear on who else needs to be held to account here.
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News Corp / Int, Ch 7, Nine Inc, et al – they all seem to peddle the same click bait, sensationalism, propaganda, fear mongering, some might say hateful, ultra partisan drival. Meta / Google amplifies their efforts and if anything; these news companies should be paying big tech for the privilege not the other way around!
(Companies who sell fashion, food, holidays and cars have to pay big tech, why do Messrs (The Media Elites) believe they should be paid for content promotion? It is quite audacious really isn’t it?) Is it a blackmail gig? Do as I say otherwise we will smear you for months on end. Are they in the blackmail business and have they always been?
The old classified spinners should have died out a decade ago, the business model is broken and they appear to be an anchor to our progression, especially in Australia, the UK and the US. Cut them off and let them rot – our communities rot as a result of their negative efforts (society impact wise).
I hope Google cuts them off too and they fade away to focus on their subscription TV models that still pump out adverts……..?????
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