Mandating Digital Platform Support for Quality Journalism
Prof. Neil Weinstock Netanel, University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) - School of Law
Dear Friends,
Last week, we had an illuminating conversation with Prof. Neil Weinstock Netanel on why and how the law should mandate digital platforms to support quality journalism.
He discussed the importance of a vibrant press in a democracy, and how the recent economic decline in the journalism industry has threatened this. A thriving press that is committed to informing the public and holding the powerful accountable is essential to our democracy. Yet during the past few years, American newsrooms have seen a crippling economic collapse, which has led to the closure of daily newspapers in more than half of American counties and to a sharp fall in the number of journalists employed. A significant factor in the fall of newsrooms, Prof. Netanel argues, has been digital platforms, particularly Google and Facebook. The advertising revenues that were the lifeblood of the for-profit news media have been drained off by their unprecedented domination over the digital advertising market. Additionally, they have developed into the main point of contact for news publishers with potential readers, forcing newsrooms to rely heavily on the erratic content selection and magnification algorithms of the platforms.
He suggested legislative measures to mandate the funding of high-quality journalism on digital platforms. In his view, current antitrust enforcement and the legislative proposals for news publishers' intellectual property rights and antitrust exemptions are insufficient to rescue quality journalism. For this reason, Prof. Netanel outlined plans for an excise tax on digital advertising to fund high-quality journalism and for supporting newsroom brands by requiring that major platforms give original reporting prominent placement in news feeds and search results.
Additionally, he posited that news publishers ought to have the authority to demand that platforms display their preferred third-party media watchdog's trustworthiness rating and link to their website. Finally, it should be mandatory for large platforms to provide their application programming interfaces so that news publishers can provide platform consumers with their own curated news content stream.
You can find the seminar recordings here and here. This presentation was based on an eponymous article published in 2021.
Have a great week,
Claudio