Kevin Rudd gave Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) chair Rod Sims a hard kick up the backside yesterday in a piece expressing scepticism about the government’s media bargaining code. (For reasons unclear, Rudd’s piece had briefly surfaced on the AFR website last week before rapidly disappearing until yesterday.)
Sims, Rudd suggested, had presided over a significant reduction in media diversity and regional news by allowing News Corp to acquire APN in 2016. “Sims’ experience as an economist is acknowledged,” wrote Rudd, “but he is way out of his depth on the critical question of media diversity. The APN sale wasn’t just about transfer pricing or market capitalisation; it was about preserving the flow of copious, accurate, local information.”
The problem for Rudd is that Sims isn’t paid to look after media diversity or local information. He’s the competition regulator, not the media regulator. There are separate laws covering media diversity administered by the Australian Communications and Media Authority. The ACCC assesses media acquisition and mergers for their impact on actual markets — primarily advertising. It has limited powers to make any other kind of assessment that would prohibit acquisitions.
But the former prime minister makes some good points, especially about the anti-competitive nature of News Corp’s current attack on news wire AAP, the radicalising impact of the far-right Sky News, and particularly about how “Murdoch’s print monopoly remains the feedstock for most broadcast media, telling TV and radio stations which stories are important, and framing the issues”.
That’s particularly relevant to the ABC which often takes its lead from The Australian in political story selection and framing.
In expressing wariness of the proposed media bargaining code, Rudd warns that it would provide an incentive to “produce greater quantities of sensational, less reliable content in pursuit of social media clicks”, thereby degrading journalism.
With all due respect to Rudd, that’s an entire herd of horses that has demolished the stable on the way out already. But he does, more correctly, warn that the code would effectively entrench the market power of News Corp — not merely via the income stream it would get from the tech giants, but via enforced access to algorithmic changes that it would be able to exploit better than smaller competitors.
Rudd’s answer is the royal commission he’s been pushing — with the support of Malcolm Turnbull — into News Corp. But he identifies the bigger policy issue behind the media bargaining code: to what extent will it be used to increase media diversity, and to what extent it will act to reduce it by entrenching the market power of, primarily, News Corp and Nine?
Remember the bargaining code began life as the ACCC’s proposal to level the playing field between the tech giants and media companies — while the regulator explicitly rejected News Corp’s lie that Google and Facebook stole content and therefore deserved compensation. But the code has now — via News Corp — been turned into a mechanism to steal large amounts of revenue from the tech companies.
Unless the revenue derived from the code — possibly in an ameliorated form that addresses the concerns of Google and Facebook and reduces the appeal of the Australian approach for other jurisdictions — is used to enhance media diversity, we risk exactly the problem that Rudd initially identifies: the ACCC’s focus on competition policy in the media sector will be entirely detached from, and even inimical to, the need for greater media diversity.
And to enhance media diversity, the very last thing that should happen to any revenue from Google and Facebook is for it to flow into the coffers of the Murdochs and Nine.
Bernard’s last paragraph gets to the nub of this whole stinking business; the government is just bending to Murdoch’s will as it always does, assisting News Corp and Nine to gouge money for themselves. We have Murdoch on one side and Google on the other; both pay little to no tax. Instead of using the mythical ‘content’ theft to pass more money over to Murdoch (on top of dubious ‘grants’ to do things, allegedly, like increase the broadcast of women’s sport), the government should be immediately pressing forward with plans to enforce a just payment of taxes by both corporations. Instead of benefiting only big media, taxes would pass into federal revenue for use in the betterment of life for all Australians. If only the government were so inclined.
Yep, made a very similar point recently, Cap’n. I really don’t think we would lose much if News Corps and SMH/Age old media went down the gurgler, and god knows I’d like to see some taxes paid by Google and Facebook for their billions in revenue.
Makes you think that Google should preempt this Code by giving money to smaller players, like Crikey, and to support more local news sites and diversity, especially in the regions.
Surely, Google and Facebook could tweak the algorithm and spread the sites it privileges to the full diversity of websites and blogs on the Internet. This could include paying minnows like Crikey and Green Left Weekly (for example) fabulous fortunes for the readers it diverts to their quality journalism.
Why would they need to privilege the old media corporations just to earn the right to pay them for their agitprop? If they are publishers, then surely they get to curate what we read the same as any newspaper and publishing corporation does?
Or am I just naïve to hope that something good could come out of this?
Naïve.
Green Left a minnow? You’re kidding. A flea more like it – insignificant and irritating. I get the idea of rewarding small or no budget quality journalism or creativity well and truly but Green Left are bereft of some of even the most correct basic facts in their rants. To wit: An article on the Labor Split of the 1930s, Jack Lang, Joe Lyons, Scullin as PM and responses to the Great Depression and the crippling loans owed by governments to the London leeches. Green Left asserted that Scullin was defeated at a general election after Lang was removed by NSW Governor Game over payment of loans. Wrong!! Lang was Premier at the time from 1930-32. Scullin was defeated in the 1931 election by his Labor rat Treasurer Joe Lyons who formed the United Australia Party – 1 year prior. The issue on this occasion was over economic strategies to fight the Depression – the conservatives with their contractionary policies of wage cuts and budget surpluses aspirations versus Labor under Scullin with their more stimulatory approach- not interest payments to UK which were the preserve of usually State Governments. This sort of historical inaccuracy would see Year 10s fail but don’t that stop the Trots at GL with their faith based approach.
On what basis do Murdoch and Nine claim compensation from Google and Facebook when both local publishers hide their material behind paywalls? It is inaccessible to anyone who finds a link in an internet search. Other than a headline, they provide no content and to be perfectly frank, the world would be better off for not being exposed to Murdoch spinners anyway. If anything, Murdoch and Nine should be paying Google and Facebook for bringing customers to their home pages as some of them might be silly enough to sign up.
Thanks for remaking my point about traffic being sent to the legacy media which should be grateful.
Yes, given the paywall, I don’t see how google benefits from links to smh/age or news corps. In fact, it’s quite the conundrum for me, I don’t understand much about the arguments. Google is claiming the proposed legislation would undermine their business model as a search engine, which seems strange to me. They are mostly a search engine, and in selling my data to advertisers, surely the news media gains from that (as advertisers try to attract people of my profile by using their algorithms.)
But on the other hand, aren’t google, Facebook and apple using news agglomeration sites to present these articles as their news, and charging for it, in which case, surely, pay the piper you thieving mongrels.
I do find that my brain automatically filters out all ad content on websites. I literally barely see it, and only do when I have to scroll over the top of it, which I do.
In other posts I’ve advised that I have read articles suggesting that the targeted advertising offered by google et al is actually both not very targeted, and not very useful, but don’t let that cat out of the bag.
There is no basis Sidney. You are correct: a Google search throws up links. Click on the link and you immediately hit the paywall of whichever company has published the story. Unless there’s one or two pieces a month you can access before the paywall is activated. Or unless it’s a non-paywall company. I must say I’m very disappointed the Guardian has joined the Murdoch lie about content being stolen.
Good article and Sims is an economist?
Frustrated and perplexed by how most Australian media types et al., including The Guardian, simply fall into the NewsCorp etc. simplistic line of attack, while showing grievous digitial illiteracy and curious economic prisms.
For example: What data is there showing how many punters use search to find regular news vs. paid ads/sponsored search vs. direct to new outlet’s website? Very basic digital, marketing and financial metric for any business or entity.
Google should and does give smaller, often unknown and including media entities, a leg up through search, no matter their physical size or location vs. legacy advantage of big players.
For example, not once has the broad impact on sole traders, small biz and SMEs who leverage not just Google ads, but the main game, quality websites, active SM network, content and SEO techniques to appear in first page of organic search results, the most trusted by punters (versus corporate paid/sponsored ads/search results).
Further, false and limited comparisons are made with the EU on its Digital Services etc. Acts and regulation related to media, suggesting the EU would be on the side of NewsCorp, 9Fairfax etc.
No. The EU is an existential threat to monopoly/oligopoly behaviour*, Murdoch and NewsCorp as the latter would not be allowed in their present form to operate under EU anti-competition laws ditto, Telstra and too many Australian public companies, allowed to dominate their sector.
*Hence, Brexit, promoted by radical right libertarian economic ideology; economic or financial freedom for the minority of top people and ‘sovereignty’ for the rest….