Facebook profited from the decline of Australia's news organisations, but enforcing the News Media Bargaining Code will make a bad situation worse without solving the problem of who will pay for the news.

Try and get past the fact that this is sort-of about Facebook. Because it’s more about the demise of news than it is about Facebook, specifically.

news organisations were never in the news business, Amanda Lotz, a professor of media studies at QUT, said.

"They were in the attention-attraction business.

"In another era, if you were an advertiser, a newspaper was a great place to be.

“But now there are just much better places to be.”

The moment news moved online, and was “unbundled” from classifieds, sports results, movie listings, weather reports, celebrity gossip, and all the other reasons people bought newspapers or watched evening TV bulletins, the news business model was dead.

News by itself was never profitable, Professor Bruns said.

"Then advertising moved somewhere else.

“This was always going to happen via Facebook or other platforms.”

It’s a really fascinating read. We can all agree that independent journalism is valuable in our society, but ultimately, most of us don’t so much seek news out as much as we encounter news as we go about our day.

I’m sure the TL;DR bot is about to entirely miss the nuance of the article. I recommend reading the whole thing.

  • @abhibeckert
    11•10 months ago

    I think you’re wrong about government funded news. It will always be less biased than privately funded news because democratic governments (even Trump) are held accountable in a way that no private company ever will be.

    We definitely shouldn’t get all our news from the government but it’s hardly the horror show Americans seem to think it is. Especially in a democratic country.

    Facebook was not built on the backs of journalist has always been about chatting to friends and family first, strangers second, and news a distant third

    Facebook has clearly stated they don’t profit off news. I’m inclined to believe them until proven otherwise, especially since I can open the Facebook app and there is literally no news anywhere to be seen.