Google's Support For Democracy And Media In NZ

Tuesday, 12 November 2024, 1:36 pm
Article: Alastair Thompson

Part 1: The Digital Media Bargaining Bill, NZME, STUFF & Google

The survival of NZ independent Media in NZ including publications like Scoop.co.nz is endangered by the conduct of Stuff and their continuing efforts to extort money from Google via the Digital Media Bargaining Bill.

Commercially the situation for all news media in NZ is dire and has been for years, but in policy terms the one item on the Govt's agenda in terms of dealing with news media's difficulties - the Digital Media Bargaining Bill - is threatening to make things a lot worse.

Media in general is in a terrible place. Largely because it is not valued it seems. Neither by corporates nor the Government and its agencies. Layoffs at publications small and large have been continuous now for decades. They started back in the 20th Century when I was a young Journalist at the Dominion Newspaper.

The new media landscape is increasingly atomised, a lot of the best media is now produced by formerly employed journalists working on Facebook, Substack or as unpaid contributors to mainstream or independent publications. Many notable journalists now eke out a living on revenues earned directly from readers on platforms such Substack & Patreon others have sufficient income to continue to do journalism for the love of it, some with family/spousal support.

In this environment the seemingly now stalled "Digital Media Bargaining Bill" is now having the exact opposite effect that it was intended to have.

It has become an existential threat to NZ Media diversity, independent and mainstream and in the case of Scoop an existential threat to our survival.

Google's opposition to the bill means that if it proceeds Google's stream of funding for a large number of large, small and medium sized publications assisted by the "Google Showcase" funding stream will come to an end.

Google has made it very clear that if the bill proceeds it will cancel this program withdrawing millions of dollars of support currently being provided by the search giant to NZ media companies small and large - notably these include the two media giants NZME and STUFF who are most enthusiastically seeking to have the Govt impose what Google considers a "link tax" approach to forcing Google to pay them. One which it objects to on principle in part because of the precedent it would make globally.

The Google support for news media via its Google News Initiative which includes the Showcase program is global, not local. Therefore Google will not change its position on this STUFF and NZME no matter how much they lobby the Govt.

As this debate has been raging over the past few years Google has been extending its voluntary support program to a large range of publications across NZ. This funding is provided under contract in return for posting links to news content on the Google Showcase platform.

Scoop was one of the first news companies to join the program, and for the past three years has been receiving funding support. This has now come to an end. Google has informed us that they will not be extending our support contract unless the bill is withdrawn.

Google has also now publicly informed the Govt. that unless the bill is withdrawn its entire program will be shut down. Both NewsRoom and TheSpinoff are also in the program. Partly in an effort to prevent this link-tax proposal from going forward - a large list of publications has been added to the list of media companies being supported - many of these are small local publications.

But as far as I can tell NZME and STUFF remain willing to throw the rest of the industry under a bus in order to try to pressure Google into doing something that it has made clear it is not willing to do.

And for Scoop.co.nz this is a new existential threat to our survival. Hence my writing this editorial. The loss of the critical Google slice of Scoop's income which has now come into effect comes on top of the headwinds of a weak NZ economy and Government spending cuts in Wellington for Government agencies, many of which are our clients.

The Bill is now stalled in Parliament it seems, and it is not clear whether NZME and STUFF are continuing to press for its passage. But presumably they are as there have been no announcements from Paul Goldsmith of them pulling away from this proposal we can only assume that they have not yet made up their mind.

Nor has the Minister responsible for this made any useful remarks on the matter clarifying what his position is on the bill and why. If the Govt is not intending to proceed with the bill - as it seems may be the case - it would be best if the Govt. would say so publicly as it is now endangering several publishing operations. Including us.

The two largest online media companies seem to believe that this is in their interests to throw the rest of the industry under the bus, probably because they think it will reduce competition from the minnows in the market for donations and subscriptions.

The bill should be withdrawn by the Government as soon as possible to end this threat, and an alternative solution to the issue of securing the future of News Media should be found.

META

In its initial formulation the Bill was expected to also deliver revenues from META i.e. Facebook properties including Instagram. However META took a very strong position against this and instead threatened to not allow publication of news links to publications on its site. It has not done this yet however, but the former large scale spending on Facebook by media companies to drive traffic to their sites appears to have ended.

Unlike Google, META for a long time had a significant revenue stream from publishers including NZME paying for search and timeline visibility on Facebook.

Part 2 continues tomorrow 13 November 2024

© Scoop Media

Alastair Thompson

Scoop Publisher

Alastair Thompson is the co-founder of Scoop. He is of Scottish and Irish extraction and from Wellington, New Zealand. Alastair has 24 years experience in the media, at the Dominion, National Business Review, North & South magazine, Straight Furrow newspaper and online since 1997. He is the winner of several journalism awards for business and investigative work.

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