Here’s all your news that’s fit to . . . Facebook
Over its 15-year history, Facebook has variously ignored news organisations while eating their advertising revenue, courted them for video projects it later ditched, then largely cut their stories out of its newsfeeds.
Now it’s to pay for news headlines — said to be millions of dollars in some cases.
Enter the “News Tab,” a new section in the Facebook mobile app that will display headlines — and nothing else — from the Wall Street
Journal, the Washington Post, BuzzFeed News, Business Insider, NBC, USA Today and the Los Angeles Times, among others.
Breitbart, a conservative news outlet that has been accused of running racist stories, will also be part of the news tab, as will local stories from several of the largest US cities. Headlines from smaller towns are on their way, Facebook says. Tapping on those headlines will take you directly to publisher websites or apps, if you have any installed. Which is one thing publishers have been requesting from Facebook’s news efforts for years.
It’s potentially a big step for a platform that has long struggled with both stamping out misinformation and making nice with struggling purveyors of news.
But media watchers are sceptical that Facebook is really committed to helping sustain the news industry.
Facebook declined to say who is getting paid and how much, saying only that it will pay “a range of publishers for access to all of their content”.
“It’s a good direction that they’re willing for the first time to value and pay for news content,” said David Chavern, head of the News Media Alliance. “The trouble is that most publishers aren’t included.”
Zuckerberg said Facebook aims to partner with a “wide range” of publishers.
“This is an opportunity to build something quite meaningful . . . We’re going to have journalists curating this, we are really focused on provenance and branding and where the stories come from.”
The Los Angeles Times said it expects the Facebook effort will help expand its readership and digital subscribers. The New York
Times said it was a “welcome first step”.