The Latest Chapter in The Platforms vs. Publishers Wars
Good morning. Somehow there is once again a ton of news to cover this week. So I’ll skip the full preamble, but want to say this: It’s been a long winter of social distancing and I’m personally feeling pretty worn out as of late—but I hope all of you are doing all right, hanging in there, and trying your best to make it through another day.
Now, onto this week’s newsletter.
Your Weekly Roundup
This week, we start with even more controversy at the New York Times. This time, the controversy is over the resignation of health reporter Donald McNeil after his inappropriate behavior on a New York Times “Student Journey” trip in 2019. There has been tons written on this story and I don’t have anything new to add, but it has been one of the major media news stories over the last two weeks.
An equally big story—of a completely different nature—from the last week was the sudden announcement of layoffs at Bloomberg. Last Thursday, Bloomberg editor in chief, John Micklethwait made the announcement in a memo to staff, with the layouts estimated at around 90 people. The memo is truly astounding for its detail in directly discussing publishing operations, specifically seeming to address missing out on stories due to a convoluted copy flow process. An excerpt:
“The main aim of this restructure is to elevate editing. A system that relies on somebody further down the production line correcting errors means nobody owns a story. We need accountability: you sign off on a story only when you think it is ready to publish. You are responsible for it. We also need editors who can work for more than one team. Under our new structure, most of the editors will report to managing editors, who can allocate them to teams, story by story. That will allow team leaders and reporters to focus on news gathering and writing stories. We will also strength our regional editing hubs, so there are more senior editors for the most important stories and features. All editors will be expected to work across groups. For the most part, we will stick to the principle of one story, one editor. No more unnecessary back-reading or re-editing. Yes, of course there will be more complicated pieces that require senior managers to be involved, but those are the exceptions. We either trust an editor to handle a story, or we don’t. If we don’t like the end result, we give the editor candid feedback.”
That’s a lot of copy flow shop talk for a memo announcing layoffs. And this announcement comes, as I discussed last week, right after Bloomberg reported strong 2020 numbers in its digital subscriptions business and projecting even more growth in 2021.
In “vulture capital” news, last Thursday, the Wall Street Journal reported that the much-maligned Alden Capital was in discussions to fully buy-out the shares of Tribune Publishing, one of the largest newspaper publishers in America. And on Tuesday, that deal was reached. Alden already owns 32% of the company’s shares, but has reached an agreement to buy the remaining shares of the company out for $17.25 per share, which makes the sale price $630 million. This news was first rumored back at the end of 2020, but it looks like the deal materialized quickly. The Baltimore Sun, one of Tribune’s major holdings (and a major part of the fifth season of The Wire) will not be included in the deal—instead it will be sold to a nonprofit organization formed by Maryland entrepreneur Stewart Bainum Jr. Brian Stelter’s “Reliable Sources” newsletter from Tuesday has a rundown of all the ramifications of this deal.
And in other major news, on Wednesday, Facebook announced it was restricting users and publishers in Australia from sharing news content on the platform in response to the country’s proposed Media Bargaining law. This is a huge development and comes as Google is also butting heads with Australia but also cutting deals due to the same proposed law (more on that later).
As I covered earlier this month, multiple media organizations are looking to fill their top editor job. That search is now over for one of those companies: Vox Media. On Tuesday, the company announced that Swati Sharma, a current managing editor at The Atlantic, will take over as editor in chief of Vox.com. Sharma has overseen The Atlantic’s daily digital coverage over the last two years. The Atlantic’s website has added 400,000 paid digital subscribers since September 2019.
And in “vertical expansion news,” last week Stephen Totilo, the former editor in chief of the gaming site Kotaku, announced on Twitter that he was joining Axios to head up their gaming coverage, with a gaming-specific newsletter set to launch this spring. As media organizations begin to expand into the gaming vertical, Axios is once again making all the smart decisions.
On Monday, Sarah Fischer took a deep dive (well deep for an Axios piece at least) into the recent audio boom driven by the COVID-19 pandemic. Have you heard of a little app called Clubhouse by any chance?
Last Friday, Sara Fischer also reported that LinkedIn is investing in developing a creator community on their platform. I am not afraid to say that I am fascinated by the weird content that is created on LinkedIn. It’s something that I’ve wanted to write about for a long time. So maybe as their plans evolve, I’ll do something a bit longer on that topic.
In case you missed it, last Tuesday, The Atlantic announced their ambitious new project called “Inheritance” with the aim of filling “the blank pages of Black history: to piece together, through reporting and data, the crucial events and conversations that have been intentionally left out of America’s narrative.” As Digiday reports, the project is part of a multiyear, seven-figure deal with initial sponsor Salesforce to support the project.
We have our Sarah Fischer hat trick! Last Thursday, Fischer had an exclusive look at the New York Times’s plans to develop a subscription product for families called NYT Kids. Those subscription numbers gotta keep going up!
Finally, I really enjoyed this episode of Ernest Wilkins’s Office Hours podcast with Jarrod Dicker of the Washington Post. The two discuss the idea of media companies as record labels, which is a line of thinking you might start hearing more about in the coming months. It’s definitely something I want to spend more time writing about.
What I’m Engaged With
As I mentioned above, the major news on the “tech companies vs. publishers” beat this week was Facebook’s decision to restrict users and publishers in Australia from posting news content on the platform in protest of the country's proposed Media Bargaining law. That is a major development and huge statement by Facebook.
However, Facebook’s move comes after Google was already taking an aggressive stance toward the same proposed law. And that was only one of the stories surrounding Google and its relationship to publishers that has happened so far this year. There’s been a lot happening on that front and so I wanted to take a moment to recap what’s happened in 2021 so far.
On January 21st, two stories were reported simultaneously. The first was that Google threatened to shut down its search engine in Australia in protest of the aforementioned proposed law. On the same day, in France, Google came to an agreement with L’Alliance de la Presse d’Information Générale, which represents about 300 press titles in France, to pay approved publishers licensing fees for using their content in snippets and other placements.
On February 10th, the news broke that Google was going to start paying publishers in the United Kingdom to use their content. The company signed a deal with 120 U.K. publications who will receive “a few million dollars per year” from the company.
Then this week, on February February 15th, it was reported that Google came to a multimillion dollar agreement with the Australian media company Seven West to pay them to display content as part of their new News Showcase product. As the Guardian reported, there were rumors, refuted by Seven West, that the deal was worth more than $30 million dollars a year.
And yesterday, Google reached a deal with Nine, the largest locally-owned media company in Australia, that is reportedly for $30 million dollars a year to feature news from its publication in Google products. But it also reached a deal with News Corp, Rupert Murdoch’s news conglomerate that includes publications like the Wall Street Journal, The Sun, and multiple publications based in Australia.
So what does this all mean?
Well, Casey Newton has a pair of pretty excellent explanations over at his Substack publication Platformer. Basically, Google and Facebook don’t want to be subject to legislation set by individual governments that dictates the terms for how and what they have to pay publishers to use their content. Google and Facebook would prefer to enter into those agreements on their own terms, as Google is doing with its News Showcase with Seven Media in Australia and with publishers in the U.K. and in France.
Newton’s key point is this, though: What good is any of this actually doing for news organizations? Google and Facebook may pay them millions over years, but a lot of that money will go to media companies who don’t necessarily need it. And will it actually help create new jobs or sustainable models? Wouldn’t it be better, as Newton puts it, for the Australian government (and governments across the globe) to use legislation to support sustainable journalism jobs rather than putting pressure on a pair of tech giants to pay for content?
I’m torn. On the one hand, this government pressure is forcing Facebook and Google to cut deals with publishers. But those deals are most likely favorable to them in the long run and the money going to publishers is only a band aid on one of the wounds of a hurting (and contracting) industry. It might feel like some kind of vindication now, but it is also potentially simply short-term thinking. Or as Newton says, “For journalism to become more sustainable in the long run, it can’t rely on handouts from the biggest tech companies of the moment to the biggest publishers of the moment.”
Basically, it’s easy to see publishers as the “good guys” in this clash with tech platforms, but the last 10 to 20 years have shown us that perhaps it isn’t necessarily that cut and dry.
A Little Bit of Culture
This Week: “Tried to Tell You” by The Weather Station (2021)
This year, I’ve made a promise to myself to spend more time sitting and listening to music. Instead of listening to music and trying to fit in work after hours or trying to digest a day of Twitter in one frantic scrolling session or trying to increase my New York Times crossword streak or writing this newsletter or trying to read the Wikipedia entry about Attila the Hun, I’m making an attempt to simply allow myself to listen to music and let my mind drift. There’s only so much productivity and half-assed attempts at self-improvement or the accumulation of knowledge you can fit into a week before nothing sticks.
I’ll admit that I’m not doing the best job. But an album that I’ve recently been listening to that’s allowed my mind to drift for periods of time is Ignorance by The Weather Station. Ignorance is The Weather Station’s fifth album and it’s ostensibly about the climate crisis. I don’t know about all that, but what I do know is that it is full of songs that are shimmering, smooth, angular, jagged, driving, and meandering. The AllMusic.com review (the best music review website forever and always) describes the record as a combination “of late-'70s/early-'80s Roxy Music and Fleetwood Mac with the exploratory spirit of jazz,” and that pretty much sums it up! (Though perhaps the record has a little less drama, pomade residue, and paranoid Lindsey Buckingham guitar-picking.) Do you like Avalon? Do you like the Stevie and Christine songs on Tusk? Then you’ll love this album.
It’s hard to pick just one song, but “Tried to Tell You” feels the most Fleetwood Mac-ish, right down to the bouncy tom hits just like Mick would add to songs in the Tusk/Rumors era. (I swear I didn’t pick it just because it’s The Weather Station’s most listened to song on Spotify!) The song’s chorus soars along on a wonderful string part while the verses are driving and lead singer Tamara Lindeman’s vocal somehow merges a Bryan Ferry croon and a wounded Christine McVie wail. Honorable mention goes to the opening track “Robber” which surprises you with woodblock sounds and horn sounds like the best kind of Roxy Music song.