Google Is Going to Pay...Publishers
Google Is Going to Pay...Publishers
Good morning!
Once again, there is a lot of media news to get to this week. I’m skipping the preamble and getting right to business.
Your Weekly Roundup
On Monday, the New York Times reported that the New York Times would be pulling its articles out of Apple News because the product had “given it little in the way of direct relationships with readers and little control over the business.” Ken Doctor has a ton of great analysis over at NiemanLab on what this could mean in the ongoing jockeying between publishers and platforms. I tend to agree with Doctor when he says that the New York Times scorning Apple is a move that only a place the size of the New York Times can make. But it does show how COVID-19 and the immediate disappearance of advertising dollars has put the value of subscriptions and sustainable, direct revenue at even more of a premium. I’ve personally never been a fan of Apple News. We’re a small media entity inside of an ecommerce platform at Artsy and the Apple News team never gave us the time of day. Their processes for advocating for story placement all felt very opaque, but I always wondered what that relationship would be like if I worked at a bigger publisher. And, as a consumer, I do sometimes find Apple News preferable to getting sucked in Twitter to catch up on news.
While we’re giving Ken Doctor credit, he also published another piece over at NiemanLab on Monday looking at the potential change in majority ownership at Tribune Publishing as well as the potential sell off of parts of McClatchy. Doctor’s piece is full of great publishing business shop talk—some of it that I don’t completely follow. But he does cover a fascinating potential outcome: a scenario where an ownership group could buy McClatchy and turn it into a nonprofit news chain.
In a big story that broke on Friday, BuzzFeed News fired one of its senior reporters over instances of plagiarism or misattribution in 11 articles. BuzzFeed News’s new editor-in-chief, Mark Schoofs, printed a note to readers stating that the articles did not meet the publication’s standards and that an editor’s note would be added to each article giving proper attribution. Schoofs’s note did not mention that the senior reporter had been fired.
Also last Friday, Curbed SF and Curbed LA printed matching notices announcing that the sites would be ceasing production and be folded into Curbed.com moving forward. This change comes ahead of a “move this fall” to New York magazine where Curbed will be added as another vertical alongside Vulture, The Cut, The Strategist, Grub Street, and The Intelligencer, which is part of the ongoing merger of Vox and New York Media. Both sites will remain in an archived state.
In Condé Nast news, on Monday, Folio reported that Stuart Emmrich had stepped down as the editor of Vogue.com. Emmerich had been in the role for only six months after a long tenure at the New York Times’s Style Desk. And Business Insider reported on June 25th, that Condé Nast had suspended Matt Hunziker, a Bon Appétit video editor. As the Business Insider story states, Bon Appétit staff members allege that Hunziker was suspended for speaking out about the publication’s lack of diversity.
Last Wednesday, Bleacher Report CEO Howard Mittman resigned after staff voiced their dissatisfaction with a culture that treated employees differently based on their race. Digiday followed up on the initial story with an extremely in-depth reported piece looking at the company’s issues, including the wild discrepancy in race between the talent at the company and those in leadership positions.
Yesterday, NiemanLab took a look at the Wall Street Journal’s new digital magazine aimed at 18- to 34-year-olds called Noted. The publication will be behind the Wall Street Journal’s paywall, so it’ll be interesting to see what kind of conversion they get in the race for more subscribers.
On Sunday, Ben Smith’s in his (already must-read weekly column) went deep on Marty Baron and the Washington Post. Specifically, how Baron turned the Post around and led it to its current period of success in the digital era, but how the moment may be passing him by.
Finally, TechCrunch reported on Amazon’s new Watch Party feature that allows people to stream video together on Prime at no additional charge. I’m actually really fascinated by this kind of product and how people may start using it for major TV events. For example, would there have been watch parties for The Last Dance in April if ESPN had that functionality in its app—or through Sling?
What I’m Engaged With
We have big news in the ongoing Google vs. Publishers battle that I’ve been covering for the past few months.
Last Thursday, via a Marc Tracy tweet, I learned through a Bloomberg story by Mark Bergen that Google had decided to pay news publishers a fee to license their content. Google said that it would be licensing “high quality” content specifically.
This is a major turn of events. Just about two months ago, Google Australia stood firm in not paying publishers to license content, comparing their surfaces as a kind of advertising space for publishers—space that they should be thankful for. Now, Google is ready to pay.
Google is starting this licensing process with publishers in Germany and Australia, which makes sense as their strongest opposition has come from Australian government agencies and EU regulators. The latter using 2019 reforms that were passed to enforce protections for news organizations to ensure they are paid properly for the use of their content.
As the Financial Times notes, Google has not yet disclosed any financial terms of this new arrangement with publishers. And as Joshua Benton explains at NiemanLab this is more about good PR than any kind of substantive change. Google will be working with specific publishers and licensing content to include in their Google News app, not on standard search.
Benton compares what Google is doing now to what Facebook has already done with its new News Tab. They are making small, goodwill gestures but not addressing the fundamental issue: that Google and Facebook both dominate online advertising revenue which during COVID-19 has rapidly dried up for publishers.
But, as I’ve covered before, there probably shouldn’t be any expectation for either Facebook or Google to save the day for media publishers. The media industry needs more systemic business and diversity and inclusion changes as we’ve seen in recent weeks. Facebook and Google aren’t going to truly help with either of those things, regardless of what kind of consistent, small gestures they continue to make.
A Little Bit of Culture
This Week: Carl Reiner Interviews the 2,000 Year Old Man
Yesterday, the world lost a titan, a true legend in the world of comedy: Carl Reiner. I don’t need to tell you about Carl Reiner or his legacy. The man was a prolific creator: he wrote for television and film, acted in both television and film, and directed both television and film. He created The Dick Van Dyke Show for God’s sake!
Because I was a Mel Brooks fan first (and I can’t imagine how Mel is feeling now after losing his best friend), I alway see Carl Reiner through the lens of Mel and his manic energy. Earlier this year, I read Funny Man, Patrick McGilligan’s extensive biography of Mel Brooks. The book paints one of my comedic heroes in….not the most flattering light. But throughout the book, Reiner serves as a calm, mature, and anchoring force for Brooks.
Carl Reiner’s sense of “zen” is never more apparent, to me, than during the 2,000 Year Old Man routine he developed with Mel Brooks. The act was conceived, constructed, and honed in the 1950s and 1960s, and then revisited intermittently during the rest of their careers. My favorite edition is 2000 And Thirteen from 1973.
The 2,000 Year Old Man is my ideal bit: a bit old fashioned, schticky, but also absurd and full of energy and spontaneous wit. And Reiner’s straight man is the perfect straight man. He sets Brooks’s 2,000 Year Old Man up to run through rapid fire jokes and word play. Because of Reiner’s steadfastness as an interviewer, Brooks is allowed to be brilliant—to sustain a level of improvisational genius that few actors, comedians, or just regular funny people who happen to be having a killer night ever reach in their lives. Yet, there are moments when Reiner breaks, and you can also hear him genuinely laughing along (listen to “Asparagus” or “Great Inventions”), barely able to contain himself. And in those moments, you know that Brooks just wanted to make Carl Reiner laugh more than anyone in any audience. We all have a friend like that.
The Action I’ve Taken
For the next few weeks, and maybe months, I’ll conclude each newsletter with a brief list of actions I’ve taken each week to help end police violence and to support an America that is free of racism. This isn’t meant to virtue signal or pat myself on the back—it’s merely meant to show my commitment to change. I won’t share any donation figures here but can provide them upon request.
Donated to Women for Political Change.
Signed the petition at Justice for Elijah McClain.
Signed a petition for BlackRock to stop funding the NYPD.
Continued to use the excellent resources provided at this site.