Media group backs Rupert Murdoch’s call on Facebook fee model

A media trade group has backed Rupert Murdoch’s call for Facebook to start paying publishers for articles and videos.

Rupert Murdoch wants Facebook to pay publishers a carriage fee for news.

A trade group representing Fairfax Media, News Corp Australia and Seven West Media’s West Australian Newspapers has thrown its support behind Rupert Murdoch’s call for Facebook to start paying publishers for written articles and video content.

Mr Murdoch has turned up the pressure on Facebook chief executive Mark Zuckerberg to make good on a promise to stamp out fake news and promote quality journalism by proposing that the social network giant adopt a new model, much like a cable distributor pays television channels for programming.

Mr Murdoch, executive chairman of News Corp, publisher of The Australian, said Facebook was not doing enough to recognise the value of journalism amid mounting concerns about the tech giant’s impact on democracy, society and journalism.

“If Facebook wants to recognise ‘trusted’ publishers then it should pay those publishers a carriage fee similar to the model adopted by cable companies,” Mr Murdoch said in a rare public statement.

“The publishers are obviously enhancing the value and integrity of Facebook through their news and content but are not being ­adequately rewarded for those services.

“Carriage payments would have a minor impact on Facebook’s profits but a major impact on the prospects for publishers and journalists.”

Peter Miller, chief executive of NewsMediaWorks, described the initiative as a “cracking idea”, saying he was “confident there would be support among our members”.

“Carriage fees for trusted content would seem to describe a ‘new financial model’, but actually paying a reasonable fee for valuable content is not a new concept at all,” Mr Miller said.

“In any event Rupert is starting a conversation about mighty journalism and how it is funded. It’s a conversation worth having.”

This is not the first time Mr Murdoch has proposed a bold new idea only to see it gain ­acceptance and become widely adopted.

In 2010, Mr Murdoch was heavily criticised for introducing paywalls around The Times of London and Sunday Times websites.

One of his biggest critics was The Guardian, which now seeks donations from online readers to help sustain the organisation’s long-term future.

Under a recently announced initiative, Facebook will prioritise news reports in its news feed from publications that users have rated as trustworthy in its surveys. It will also favour posts shared by friends and family over those posted by news organisations and brands.

Recently it was revealed that Russian entities spread political propaganda before Donald Trump won the US presidential election in 2016. Facebook’s role in the British government’s Brexit vote and other European elections has also come under the spotlight.

Facebook’s ostensible goal in making these changes is to stamp out fake news by reducing the reach of news articles. But industry observers suspect the weighting of news sites is politically motivated rather than an olive branch to publishers.

“There is still a serious lack of transparency that should concern publishers and those wary of political bias at these powerful platforms,” Mr Murdoch said.

“Facebook and Google have popularised scurrilous news sources through algorithms that are profitable for these platforms but inherently unreliable. Recognition of a problem is one step on the pathway to cure, but the remedial measures that both companies have so far proposed are inadequate, commercially, socially and journalistically.”

Facebook has opened talks with publishers about mechanisms to help attract more subscribers.

“There has been much discussion about subscription models, but I have yet to see a proposal that truly recognises the investment in and the social value of professional journalism,” Mr Murdoch said.

Facebook and Google declined to comment.