WHAT IS THE MARKET PRICE FOR NEWS?

We have it on the authority of headline writers, pundits, politicians and academics around the world that Facebook and Google are monopolistic oligopolistic surveillance capitalists whose power over news and information should be brought under government control to save democracy. The government of Australia, it was said, is leading the global campaign to tame the tech giants by forcing them to pay for news content. Canada, the United Kingdom and other nations will be next.

After Facebook suspended the ability of Australians to find and share news stories last week, it looked like a nailbiter between state power and corporate power. The game is far from over, but early details of a deal struck Tuesday between Facebook and the Australian government suggest Facebook has scored a goal, leaving the tech giant with a 2-1 edge after the Aussies watered down their proposed regulation.

Australia’s regulatory plan to impose a “code of conduct” on the tech firms was rightly opposed by Facebook and Google. As originally drafted, the code would force the tech companies to negotiate news content compensation deals with all of Australia’s media corporations. If no collective deal could be reached, a government-appointed arbitrator would move within a month to impose a settlement.

Under the revised deal, it appears, the collective bargaining aspect has been scrapped. Facebook can negotiate with individual media corporations — a compromise one Bloomberg critic described as equivalent to union busting. Facebook now holds the upper hand.

Campbell Brown, Facebook’s vice-president of Global News Partnerships, emphasized that Facebook “will retain the ability to decide if news appears on Facebook so that we won’t automatically be subject to a forced negotiation.” In other words, Facebook can pull the plug on Australian media if the government threatens action.

Facebook’s statement on the new deal certainly indicates it also intends to retain control over news content on its system.

“After further discussions with the Australian government, we have come to an agreement that will allow us to support the publishers we choose to, including small and local publishers. We’re restoring news on Facebook in Australia in the coming days. Going forward, the government has clarified we will retain the ability to decide if news appears on Facebook so that we won’t automatically be subject to a forced negotiation. It’s always been our intention to support journalism in Australia and around the world, and we’ll continue to invest in news globally and resist efforts by media conglomerates to advance regulatory frameworks that do not take account of the true value exchange between publishers and platforms like Facebook.”

That “true value exchange” reflects Facebook’s legitimate argument that the company is not stealing news content from the media conglomerates. Instead, argues Facebook, the media companies benefit from having their news products flagged on Facebook and Google.

Another question is whether the model implies that Facebook and Google — and potentially other platforms — will each separately negotiate for content with news-producing media companies. If they do negotiate separately, does that in turn imply competition between the two for news content? Such competition would certainly change the market landscape for news content.

It will, however, take some time before the new Australian news compensation model is fully and clearly understood. At this point it does not appear to be a model that Canada’s Heritage Minister, Steven Guilbeault, should be rushing to duplicate. Nor is it a model that Canadian news consumers should embrace. If anything, the model seems to increase the influence of the tech giants over content.

Here’s a question nobody seems to be asking as the world’s governments wage war on Facebook and Google: How much are consumers, as individuals and as democratic voters in a free society, willing to pay for news? What is the market price for the news?

The reason for asking the question arises out of an insight from Prof. Dwayne Winseck at Carleton University’s School of Journalism. In a paper published in December on the growing crisis in Canadian media, Winseck observed that over the past 150 years Canadians “have never paid the full freight for journalism.”

TV and radio news have always been available free of charge over the airwaves; newspapers could be bought daily for a fraction of the cost of production covered by advertising revenue. Governments have supported public broadcasters. And wealthy patrons have often supported news institutions.

In this historical context, Winseck says the question “is not whether journalism will be, at least in part, subsidized but what kind of subsidies will be enrolled in the task of supporting public interest journalism fit for a democracy and promoting the functions that we think are essential to the well-being of ourselves, society and democracy?”

In the Big Tech era of news and journalism, it looks like individual consumers will take an even more reduced market role in paying for and setting a value on news. Facebook’s Journalism Project talks about “The Value of News on Facebook,” but little is said about the market price for news or its monetary value to news consumers.

Under the Aussie model, journalism will be supported by a combination of forces — government-imposed mandates and threats, giant corporation decision-making, and advertising dollars. Is that a model for press freedom?

FACEBOOKAUSSIE DEAL IS NOT THE ANSWER.