Publishers call on government to help over Google and Facebook

Newspaper publishers have called on the government to curb the activities of search engines and social media websites.

Through their trade body, the News Media Association (NMA), they delivered a briefing to ministers on Thursday about their concerns.

They want the government to “ensure that online platforms operate within a framework that is fair, non-abusive and respectful of media plurality.”

The briefing states that “the online news environment is characterised by aggregation of news stories by third party players who repackage, serve, link to and monetise that content.”

It says that “Google dominates these activities in search and Facebook dominates in social” and believes “there are potential benefits for news publishers in working with them, not least in terms of reaching new audiences.”

But publishers are worried that “the situation is far from win-win and significant value is being captured by companies who do not invest in original journalism at the expense of those who do.”

The NMA points out that publishers face substantial costs to produce quality journalism, saying: “It is becoming increasingly difficult to meet these costs, partly because of the lower value of digital advertising compared to print, but also because of the diversion of advertising spend from publishers towards aggregators.”

It continues by referring to another problem facing the industry: adblocking. The briefing states:

“Attempts to achieve sustainability in this difficult environment are also being undermined by the restrictive practices imposed by the most powerful online platforms and by the rise of adblocking outfits, who in their own way are part of the scramble to generate ad revenues from content to which they have made no contribution.”

And the publishers also raise a wider concern about “the impact on media plurality and the functioning of democracy.” Every day, it says, “the UK’s newspapers – digital and print - can be counted on to provide the subject matter of the country’s democratic conversation.

“However, they can only survive if the relationship between rewards for producing journalism is commensurate with costs.”

The document states: “The value chain of digital news has become wildly out of step with the contribution that each player makes and that this is not sustainable.”

The briefing was sent to Baroness Neville-Rolfe, the minister for energy and intellectual property, who had requested a summary of issues facing the industry. It was also sent to Matthew Hancock, minister for digital policy and culture.

Update 5pm: Google responded to the NMA’s appeal to the government. A Google spokesperson sent the following statement:

“There is no advertising on Google News. Google creates value for the news sector by sending 10bn free clicks each month to publisher websites, which they can monetise.

“We have been working with UK publishers through the Digital News Initiative to develop more sustainable models for online news, developing new products such as Accelerated Mobile Pages in order to boost publishers’ traffic and increase monetisation.”