Minister says planned launch of Google News Showcase in NZ is 'encouraging'

Tuesday, 16 March 2021

Google News Showcase presents news curated by media partners in panels that can be browsed in the Google News app.

Broadcasting Minister Kris Faafoi says it is encouraging that Google plans to launch a New Zealand version of its Google News Showcase service later this year.

The move should create a new funding line to help pay for journalism.

Google has not revealed the size of any budget it has for media deals in New Zealand.

But the company has earmarked US$1 billion (NZ$1.4 billion) over three years globally for the service, which is so far available in Germany, Brazil, Argentina, Canada, Britain and Australia.

The service sees Google pay mainstream media organisations to supply and curate stories – in some cases including normally paywalled content – that can be browsed in panels in its Google News app and then viewed for free, and will later be made available through Google’s main search engine.

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Google has budgeted $1.4b globally over three years for Google News Showcase, providing a new income stream for mainstream media organisations.

The service directs readers to publishers’ own websites to view stories, which Google says should help drive their audience growth.

Faafoi said earlier this month that he was watching the impact of an Australian law that aims to encourage social media and internet search businesses to pay the media for news shared through their services and that work was taking place to assess options for regulation in New Zealand.

But that work would be heavily influenced by the nature of the actions and discussions between online platforms and media companies, he said.

He said on Wednesday that he welcomed the planned launch of Google News Showcase.

“I support news organisations and the digital platforms working together to find solutions that best suit their customers and the local media landscape to ensure New Zealanders have access to reliable, independent news and information.

“I will be watching future developments with interest as the Government continues to consider options,” he said.

Google has separately announced it is providing funding from its $3m Google News Initiative to support Stuff’s “The Whole Truth” project.

That project will see Stuff partner with Māori Television and the Pacific Media Network to provide information targeted towards Māori and Pacific communities on the Covid vaccine programme and combat misinformation.

Stuff chief executive Sinead Boucher says it can work with Google constructively.

Stuff chief executive and owner Sinead Boucher said Stuff was looking forward to having active discussions with Google on Google News Showcase.

The Australian Media Bargaining Code to which Faafoi referred had helped lead to “productive outcomes” there, she said.

“We look forward to discussions in a similar vein here,” she said.

“Our announcement that we have secured funding from Google News Initiative for a fact-checking project to fight vaccine misinformation shows we can work constructively with Google and we look forward to doing so.”

Broadcasting Minister Kris Faafoi has indicated the success of commercial negotiations between online platforms and the media will influence his view on whether Australian-style regulations might be required.

A spokesman for NZME, publisher of the New Zealand Herald, said its news teams also enjoyed a constructive relationship with Google and was watching international developments in the relationships between news organisations and global social media and tech companies.

“We look forward to working on this issue with all parties in New Zealand including Google, Facebook, the New Zealand government and our industry partners,” he said.

Google NZ country director Caroline Rainsford said there had been “some questions around the relationship between digital platforms and news publishers”.

Google News Showcase was designed to “bring value to both publishers and readers by providing a licensing programme that pays publishers to curate content for story panels across Google services, and give readers more insights into the stories that matter”, she said.

Rainsford said Google would reach out to potential Google News Showcase partners in New Zealand later this year, but it is understood informal discussions have already taken place with some publishers.

Google was committed to supporting the promotion of accurate and critical information “and longer term, we’ll continue to partner, along with many others, to support a strong future for journalism in New Zealand,” she said.

Material from about 500 publications is available through the Showcase service so far where it is available, including Britain’s The Financial Times, Reuters, Germany’s Der Spiegel and Australia’s Seven West Media.

It is understood the size of payments made to individual media outlets is based on a fairly standard formula, rather than being heavily subject to individual negotiations.

Google brought forward the launch of Google News Showcase in Australia because of its media bargaining code.

The company is understood to be confident it won’t be “designated” as an online service that is required to negotiate deals under the Australia law because of the efforts it has made independently to support public interest journalism, which in effect could contract it out of the legislation.

According to Google, 76 media organisations in New Zealand and pacific islands have so far taken up an offer of assistance from Google through its separate Journalism Emergency Relief Fund, which was set up in the wake of the Covid pandemic.