The chief executive of Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp is a man transformed.
After cash-for-journalism deals with Google and Facebook, Robert Thomson’s accusations of “smugness” from Big Tech have made way for compliments.
Thomson lauded Google boss Sundar Pichai for his “thoughtful commitment to journalism” following an agreement with News Corp last month.
Praise was also saved for Mark Zuckerberg on Monday when Thomson credited the Facebook chief for “helping fashion the future of journalism” through a pay deal in Australia.
The latest agreement with Facebook may have cooled tensions between Murdoch’s media dynasty and Silicon Valley in their long-running battle for influence and power — but questions remain.
‘It’s not just about News Corp’
It is unclear as to whether these deals can lay the foundations for an everlasting accord that benefits all news publishers, or whether such agreements will wither with time.
The 60-year-old boss of News Corp, which owns News UK, the publisher of the Times and Sun, believes the dial has shifted.
Thomson told last month’s Morgan Stanley TMT Conference that the “the terms of trade for content are changing fundamentally”.
“It isn’t just about News Corp,” he added. “It’s also about providing some negotiating leverage for smaller publishers.”
Not everyone is in agreement.
Lord Rothermere, chairman of Daily Mail and General Trust (DMGT), made his opinion clear through a letter in the Financial Times last month.
“As long as the platforms persuade enough desperate news publishers to sign take-it-or-leave-it deals, there will now be no fair, independent arbitration.”
Google and Facebook made A$4.3bn (£2.6bn) and A$700m in advertising revenues in Australia respectively, according to official filings.
At one stage News Corp argued it was owed up to A$1bn by the tech giants for its news stories. Australia’s major publishers are said to have secured deals worth A$150m with Google last month, according to the Australian Financial Review.
News Corp’s new deal with Facebook covers newspapers such as The Australian, the Herald Sun and Australia’s Daily Telegraph, with a parallel agreement for Sky News Australia.
It followed a bitter stand-off between Facebook and the Australian government.
Facebook enforced a seven-day blackout that prevented Australian users from seeing news stories in their feeds, or Australian publishers being available anywhere on the social network.
That ended when the Australian government agreed to amend legislation forcing Facebook to pay news organisations. It included a looser deadline for negotiating with publishers and assurances they could pull out of news in the future.
News Corp’s recent deals are scant on detail, but one key piece of information stands out: the time frame.
The contracts with Google and Facebook are for a three-year period, suggesting the tech companies could roll back terms, or mount fierce re-negotiations, within a short period.
Can these deals really claim to be the starting point for long-lasting agreements with publishers, or are they merely short-term tests for the tech firms?
‘Tactical victories’
Douglas McCabe, chief executive of Enders Analysis, says News Corp’s deals were “tactical victories” and it had done “an impressive job of keeping this issue front of people’s minds”.
“But the strategic question remains in place,” he added. “How to improve the incentives for independent, quality news origination in the digital age, assuming we all agree that that plays a critical role in a healthy democracy.”
“We hope the UK’s Digital Markets Unit will deal with such strategic questions — designing for new definitions, norms, practices and market outcomes — regarding origination, curation and content distribution, rather than carving out a series of time-stamped deals.”
Concerns from the UK’s regulators and politicians have only intensified following Australia’s dust up with Facebook and Google. Two years after the Cairncross review into the future of journalism, and following the Competition and Markets Authority’s market study into Big Tech, the UK is now on the verge of launching a unit to tackle tech’s dominance.
Damian Collins, the Conservative MP, says: “Letting publishers and tech firms come to an agreement is the best way to go, but that will be much harder if there is no compulsion and the tech giants can just walk away.
“The lesson of Australia is that deals are possible, but only if there is a sense something has to be in place and if publishers are not happy, the regulators can step in.”
Whether the UK will go the whole hog and lump Facebook and Google with a blanket threat of paying for news is less certain.
Facebook Australia ban key dates
Facebook and Google have both already agreed to launch news products in the UK, which see them investing in deals with select publishers.
But media companies hope things will go further than behind-closed-doors agreements that see small subsidies for newsrooms.
A News Media Association spokesman says: “The deals that news publishers are reaching with the tech platforms are a welcome acknowledgement of the principle that journalism has to be paid for. This does not however diminish the requirement for a robust regulatory framework underpinned by legislation to level the playing field.”
In the US, the narrative around Big Tech and journalism has undergone a rapid shift. Brad Smith, President of Microsoft, appeared before politicians on Friday saying his company would agree to pay for news even if it hit their bottom line.
Anna-Sophie Harding, of NewsGuard Technologies and an advisor to Ofcom, says: “We have seen a 180-degree turn from the US being proud of its tech platforms to deciding something needs to change. It is a bipartisan issue.”
The Journalism Competition Preservation Act would give Facebook and Google a four year window to come to a deal with publishers.
David Cicilline, a Democrat representative, said the bill “will give hardworking local reports and publishers the helping hand they need right now”.
NewsGuard’s Harding believes one challenge the UK faces is making sure smaller publishers are not left behind.
“The UK is less likely to present a nuclear option to US tech platforms — for one thing there is a trade deal to negotiate," she adds. "Smaller publishers are worried that the focus will be on massive news organisations. Will they be left out?”
News Corp’s Thomson has won ground in his decade-long tussle with the tech giants, but heaping praise on Google and Facebook may be a move he comes to regret.
Facebook’s talks with the Australian government have shown the social media firm’s propensity to lash out when at the negotiating table.
Thomson will be hoping history does not repeat itself when his Australian agreement with Facebook is up for renewal in three year’s time.
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