Media bosses plead for help in arm wrestle with internet giants

Thursday, 15 February 2024

Media bosses have made a series of impassioned pleas for the Government to step in and help the media secure more substantial support from internet giants to help fund journalism.

Parliament’s Economic Development, Science and Innovation select committee heard evidence on Thursday on the Fair Digital News Bargaining Bill, drafted by the previous government.

It would require internet giants including Google and Meta pay publishers for local news shared through their websites.

RNZ chief executive Paul Thompson said the media was struggling and questioned how the current fire in the Port Hills in Christchurch might be reported in five or 10 years’ time without the law change.

New Zealand was a vulnerable nation geopolitically and the stakes were high, Thompson said.

A strong media was not a “nice to have” but essential for a sovereign nation, he said.

Internet platform companies would argue they didn’t benefit from the availability of news through their services “but of course they do”, he said.

Media and Communications Minister Melissa Lee gave the green light for the Fair Digital News Bargaining Bill to be reviewed in a select committee.

Although she is not committing to the bill, that appears a significant change of heart after she told The Post in August when in opposition that the National Party would definitely not be supporting the legislation.

She made clear in August that one of her concerns was that Meta might respond by blocking New Zealand news content from being shared on Facebook, as it did in Canada when similar legislation was enacted there.

Several media organisations, including Stuff, publisher of The Post, have reached commercial deals with Google outside of the forced-bargaining framework that would be created by the new legislation.

That has seen them receive some funding in return for providing curated content for Google’s News Showcase app.

But Daryl Holden, co-owner of the Ashburton Guardian, told the select committee he was “almost embarrassed” by the small amount of funding it was receiving from such an arrangement because it would not be enough to hire one graduate journalist.

News Publishers Association (NPA) public affairs director Andrew Holden said the legislation would not be a silver bullet for media organisations that would make them rich.

But the NPA’s president, Stuff owner Sinead Boucher, told the committee its members had asked her to convey its “utter urgency”.

Some were “clinging on by their fingernails”, she said.

“Journalism is in a fight for its life against the most powerful and profitable companies that have ever existed.”

Even people who had never read a news story benefited from good journalism, for example in keeping the country free of corruption, she said.

Ultimately, the law change was about “fairness” and addressing a power imbalance, Boucher said.

Michael Boggs, chief executive of NZME, publisher of the New Zealand Herald, said the importance of the Fair Digital News Bargaining Bill could not be overstated.

The internet giants were “taking content and using it for their own financial benefit”, he said.

But the bill should be strengthened to address the fact that internet firms were now freely using online news content to train artificial intelligence engines, he said.

“We do think we should be compensated for the use of our content by those AI engines.”

The commercial deal NZME had reached with Google was a “fraction of the value it should be”, Boggs said.

Peter Thompson, chairperson of the Better Public Media lobby group, said he supported the aims of the bill but believed a levy to fund public interest journalism would be a better option.

The Free Speech Union and the Taxpayers Union lobby group were among presenters arguing the legislation should not proceed.

The latter argued the bargaining regime created by the bill would amount to a subsidy for larger media firms “facilitating the agglomeration of New Zealand’s media industry behind a small number of major outlets”.

Questioned on that view by MPs, Boucher said it was ironic that the Taxpayers Union was lobbying on behalf of internet giants that paid little tax in New Zealand, against the interests of media firms that did.

Google and Meta chose not to appear in front of the select committee.

Google said in an earlier written submission that the law change was “fundamentally misconceived” and would not lead to fair outcomes for New Zealanders.

In a seemingly veiled threat, it said the bill was “so unworkable for Google that we would have to reassess the manner in which it operates in New Zealand”.

However, it also appear to hint at room for compromise if the types of news media organisations and content it would be required to support with licensing deals were better defined.

As drafted, the bill could create a perverse incentive for publishers to create large volumes of low-quality content, it said in its written submission.

“Forced payments could also create a financial reliance by news media companies on a fast-moving but adjacent industry that may be reshaped by innovation over time.”

Meta has appeared more categoric in its opposition to the bill, saying in its written submission that it ignored “basic economic and commercial realities” and did not give weight to the true nature of the value exchange between publishers and platforms.

The Government’s policy goal should be to encourage the media’s digital transition “and not to discriminate against two US companies to benefit large media entities”, it submitted.