Initial discussions in SANEF have thrown up a number of possibilities to tackle the structural challenges posed by the dominance of Facebook/Google.
The global tech giants have upended news and in so many ways. News editors historically played the role of curators who chose what the public needed to know. That has now changed as Facebook – and social media generally – has replaced these functions.
What is trending on social media is now often the most important benchmark of news. And the power of the tech giants has grown. For instance, by 2016 Facebook had far more users than any country had citizens; it was the biggest and most centralised group of people that the globe had ever seen.
But the big question is: have these giants been a force for good? In some ways they have; the power of Facebook and Google to get news out across the world – at speed – has been phenomenal. However, simultaneously there have also been serious problems with the increase in disinformation and misinformation, the polarisation of audiences, the creation of so-called ‘filter bubbles’, and of course, one of the most serious problems has been the undermining of the financial sustainability of the ‘traditional’
news media (such as print and online publications and television news channels).
Facebook and Google have created algorithms that very accurately target potential advertisers in ways that traditional media struggle to compete with. As all media moves online, this becomes more and more of a problem.
As Harry Dugmore explains in his important paper Paying the Piper, since approximately 2013/2014 marketing and advertising budgets have increasingly shifted to digital. This is a profound and growing move – but the problem is that it does not benefit local media. By 2018 Google and Facebook earned collectively at least 50% of all internet advertising revenue worldwide – and since then they have only continued to get a bigger slice of the advertising pie.
The impact of Covid
Before Covid-19 the news media were struggling – then with Covid, with economic lockdowns and more dependence on online lifestyles, things deteriorated further.
To document the economic trends, the South African National Editors’ Forum (SANEF) conducted research to look at the initial impact on the industry. In June 2020 we launched our Covid-19 Impact on Journalism Report.
The report pointed to the various ways that the industry had been weakened – particularly the print media. It documented the closure of two magazine publishers and 80 small print publications operating across the country, leading to the loss of over 700 journalist jobs in a few months. Also, the report pointed to the fact that freelancers had been particularly badly impacted and that 60% had lost almost 70% of their income – and that some had lost 80% to 100%.
What was worrying was that the report was launched before the SABC had announced its plans to retrench approximately 600 workers and also before Media 24 had announced its plans to retrench 510 people. Also, it was before Primedia announced that they too would be embarking on a retrenchment process of an undisclosed number of people.
SANEF at this point realised that it was not sufficient to just do this research – something urgently needed to be done. The decision was then taken to launch a relief fund.
The idea behind the fund was, initially, to assist journalists with immediate relief and then, to look at a range of sustainability interventions to assist the industry as a whole. It is here that the possibility of doing research on ways to deal with the Facebook/Google challenges was mooted alongside a number of other projects such as looking at the zero rating of news websites.
To date 227 journalists have been paid a small stipend of R5 000. SANEF has managed to raise just under R5 million from a number of corporates including MTN, that provided the initial seed funding of R500 000. Standard Bank, Nedbank, FNB, Old Mutual, Allan Gray and Yellow Woods contributed, alongside a number of concerned individuals, including a number of journalists. SANEF is now in a good position to look at the funding for round three i.e. media industry sustainability interventions.
Some thoughts as to a way forward
Initial discussions in SANEF have thrown up a number of possibilities to tackle the structural challenges posed by the dominance of Facebook/Google.
One possibility put forward is to use the relief fund to do research looking at best practice international interventions, including the possibilities of taxing Facebook and Google and ensuring that some of these taxes are invested in news.
However, another way forward is to embark on a major, ongoing, lobbying campaign to convince corporate South Africa to invest in news production as a contribution to supporting South Africa’s democracy.
First thoughts on the campaign include explaining the critical importance of the news media to the well-being of South Africa including the holding of the powerful to account and the rooting out of corruption.
And then alongside that to explain the importance of making a concrete commitment to spend at least a portion of their advertising budgets on the traditional media.
It will also be important to convince corporate South Africa that there is still value to advertising in the media. The news media know their audiences and there are still many possibilities for creative advertising campaigns that can benefit both parties.
So, in conclusion
Many people talk about the advertising financial model of the media being broken and a completely new model being needed. There is certainly a lot of debate needed on how to safeguard the sustainability of the media. That is not in question.
However, SANEF still believes that advertising remains an important source of funding, alongside subscription funding, donor funding, membership model funding and so forth.
So, to safeguard advertising revenue online we need to look at the role of Facebook and Google; we need to look at their particular role in South Africa, and we need to do research into what can be done. Simultaneously we need to convince Corporate South Africa including the co-ordinating bodies – Business Leadership South Africa and Business Unity South Africa – that their advertising rands are critical for the media news industry and the future of South Africa’s democracy.
This story was first published in Lame Duck Digital, an initiative of CaxtonCTP and Spark Media, which was published on behalf of the broader media industry. The brief was simple: address the wide-ranging and dangerous effects social media and tech giants have had, and will continue to have, on the media sector. It can be downloaded here.
Kate Skinner is the executive director of the South African National Editor’s Forum. She has worked on media freedom, diversity and development issues since 1994. She has worked for a number of independent TV production houses including Kagiso Education Television (now Grounded Media) and Traffic. In 2008 Skinner founded the civil society coalition SOS: Support Public Broadcasting (originally the ‘Save our SABC’ Campaign). In 2017 she completed her PhD degree focusing on public broadcasting, media diversity and the digital terrestrial television (DTT) migration process.
