By Judi McLeod ——Bio and Archives--July 10, 2017
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"This week, a group of news organizations will begin an effort to win the right to negotiate collectively with the big online platforms and will ask for a limited antitrust exemption from Congress in order to do so. "It's an extreme measure with long odds. But the industry considers it worth a shot, given its view that Google and Facebook, regardless of their intentions, are posing a bigger threat economically than President Trump is (so far) with his rhetoric."Talk about getting things bass-ackwards. It is not Google and Facebook who are posing a bigger threat to online outlets, but the mainstream media's reliance on Fake News, which it uses to try to shut them out. The New Media Alliance, is the old one still trying to force-feed readers lib-left propaganda masquerading in the name of "quality journalism". But that's not how David Chavern, chief executive of the NMA puts it in an opinion piece published online by the Wall Street Journal on Sunday evening. (Readers have to pay to get it)
"The Alliance, the main newspaper industry trade group, is leading the effort to bargain as a group. But it has buy-in across the spectrum of its membership, bringing together competitors like The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal and The Washington Post, as well as scores of regional papers like The Star Tribune of Minneapolis, which face the gravest threats." (NYT)Pardon us, boys, but aren't the New York Times and Washington Post the biggest purveyors of Fake News? "Capturing the current mood, News Corporation--which oversees The Journal, The New York Post and Dow Jones--said in a statement that it supported the effort to "focus the public and Congress on the anticompetitive behavior of the digital duopoly, especially as it adversely affects the news and information businesses." (NYT) News Media Alliance top executive David Chavern was chief of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce for most of the last decade. The same Chamber of Commerce that advocates open borders and the end of American sovereignty.
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"Mark Thompson, the chief executive of The New York Times Company, told me that "the temperature is rising in terms of concern, and in some cases anger, about what seems like a very asymmetric, disadvantageous relationship between the publishers and the very big digital platforms. "The thinking is that publishers need the option of operating as a group--and the leverage that would come from any collective action--should they determine that it's the only way to win meaningful accommodations. "The maneuvering is about more than the fight for digital territory. It's about the endurance of quality journalism--expensive to produce, and under economic pressure as never before--at a time when false, cost-free "reportage" about things like "millions of illegal votes" can gain enough prominence to drive federal initiatives."Oh, brother! "The endurance of quality journalism". What "quality" journalism is in the NYT, Washington Post et al with their no there there conspiracy that the Russians robbed Hillary Clinton of the 2016 presidency?
"If you want a free news model, you will get news," Mr. Chavern told me last week. "But it will be garbage news--it will be 'Pope Endorses Trump.'" (NYT)
"The timing also seems ripe considering the murmuring in the United States about the possibility of regulation for the tech giants, and more direct action against them in Britain and across Europe, where regulators recently socked Google with a huge antitrust fine. "In the tumultuous news climate, Google and Facebook don't want to be seen as undermining real journalism. And executives with both companies told me it was in their interests to have ample, reliable news content."Nor do the NYT, Post and other mainstream purveyors of False News, want to be seen as "undermining real journalism", Mr. Chavern. Is this really what the New Media Alliance is all about?
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