The news industry and Big Tech have a complicated relationship. 

Google last week released a study which showed that news is not significant, amounting to less than 1% of ad revenue decreased when it was removed. 

I have been asked more than once how I can possibly continue to push for joint projects with Big Tech. Or, as one post on LinkedIn said: “It is difficult to believe Google’s claims they are a friend and ally to news and media businesses whilst at the same time Google so actively seeks to prove these businesses provide them with no value.” And went on to call on associations and organisations not to have Google at events. 

I think these comments miss the point. News not being important to Google’s business and it wanting to support the news industry can both be true.

This isn’t just a Google conversation; this is a Big Tech conversation. 

Public companies have a fiduciary responsibility to their shareholders. And they must work within the confines of the law. We hope they would work with integrity, and for platforms this means a responsibility to provide accurate, truthful, balanced information. As we, the news industry, have accuracy, truth, and balanced information as our main purpose, we see this as synonymous with paying us to provide this information. This is an oversimplification. 

For the most part, the legal confines don’t give them a responsibility to pay all media companies. And their fiduciary duty most certainly doesn’t. So we end up with arguments about content licensing and, as one of my colleagues put it, “throwing studies at each other” to prove these points. 

This is not new. We’ve seen it play out before. And for the most part, we have lost. 

While in some countries agreements have been reached, these are for limited periods of time and appear to be falling apart. In fact, Meta has decided that it’s far too much hassle and is not only easier not to pay but has pulled out as much news as it can — as the Canadians well know know as there is a complete halt on all professional news on Facebook.  

It is true that fact-based, professional content is needed as a corpus of search. Is the care of duty to showcase journalism or support the news business? 

It’s a fine balance. Tech companies don’t want to become newsrooms or create content. But they do want access to professional, trusted content. And it’s a lot easier to understand and cater to the guardrails of an organisation that ensures trusted factual information — essential for grounding data, especially around high-stakes news events — than it is around individuals.  

As the news industry, we need to start finding common ground for what “accurate, truthful, balanced” information actually is. We need to figure out sustainable business models. We need to be clear what our fact-checking and other guardrails are and convey those. We need to improve our products to offer customers the best possible access. After all, isn’t that what we’re here for?

All this is becoming even more important as AI and answer engines become more commonplace. 

But what we really need to do is break the cycle of arguments and counter surveys. We’ve seen it before. I believe that we can only do this through dialogue and working together with the individuals who can help effective change. And we need to do that together. 

Because, like it or not, we all have a reliance on tech. For discovery of our products. For our business operations. For our own personal lives. It’s an ecosystem of which we must be a part. We have no choice in the matter.  

So do we really want to pull out of everything Google or everything Big Tech? If we’re not at the table, we’re on the menu. If we talk, we have the opportunity to lead the conversation. I sincerely hope we can opt for the latter and come together as a community to discuss forward-looking approaches that serve the public and enable a sustainable news ecosystem because ultimately that will make tech products better.

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