Better Call Paul Fletcher to stop piracy

Jigsaw puzzles with the kids, Zoom meetings, cooking meals and taking the dog for a local walk fill the days in the time of coronavirus. Viewing streaming services such as Foxtel Now, Netflix and Amazon Prime is a diversion, too, given authorities have decreed we are not to leave home. Imagine if a pirate claimed all that original content, which is expensive to produce, and put it on a proprietary platform. Come and get it, folks, it’s free. And while you’re here, consider these ads from our sponsors. What a business model! No need to pay those actors on The Crown and Game of Thrones or the thousands of people producing binge-inducing gems such as Cheer or Tiger King. Got a problem with someone stealing your pay lunch, Netflix or Stan? You Better Call Paul. Except Communications Minister Paul Fletcher isn’t tuned into your problem.

That’s the essence of the existential crisis for the news business. Journalists, photographers and producers create stories, pictures, videos and podcasts. A team working around the world and around the clock makes the newspaper you’re reading — in print, on a tablet, smartphone or computer. On a mega- story such as the COVID-19 pandemic, changing by the minute, it’s a privilege and a grind. We inform readers and keep a close watch on decision-makers. But it’s a business as much as a mission. We exist because profits, as well as our values and wider social mission, attract investors. Yet our industry is collapsing. This week News Corp Australia, our parent, revealed it was suspending print editions of 60 local newspapers. Rivals also have put titles into hibernation.

This news crisis is not because media companies are inept or consumers have moved en masse to a better offering. In fact, as COVID-19 shows, people have never been hungrier for high-quality news. Our future is imperilled because Google and Facebook — ubiquitous, super-profitable, amoral, digital raiders — are inserting themselves between news outlets and customers. These two companies aren’t better at telling stories than we are; they don’t even try to compete on that score. What they’re expert at is gobbling up advertising revenue via algorithms that suck up our content. To add insult to injury, we are obliged to deal with these giants, which have privatised the internet. It’s naked theft, bullying and destructive. Again, Google and Facebook don’t employ news professionals, or take risks on expensive investigations, or support local communities. What they create is monopoly, mayhem and misery.

Google and Facebook are perfecting what Harvard’s Shoshana Zuboff has termed “surveillance capitalism”, where users are the product. But to snare you, they are bleeding us dry. Some believe all we are doing is moaning; that in an era of digital disruption, the tech titans won and we, traditional news providers, lost. Move along, nothing to see here except corporate road kill. But that’s a lazy, ignorant and reckless way to see the world. An independent analysis, albeit bracing for an open society, is contained in the far-reaching probe into digital platforms by the Australian Competition & Consumer Commission. The watchdog’s role is not ideological social engineering or playing corporate god. Its job is to set market conditions for the good of the entire community.

The ACCC report exposed the pernicious, unchecked power of the titans and fragility of traditional news outlets. The commission advised the Morrison government to impose a code of conduct; digital pirates should pay for the plundered content they profiteer from. The government timidly asked parties to negotiate a voluntary code or it would institute a mandatory one by year’s end. Google and Facebook are neither in a hurry nor acting in good faith. Why would they? Over a decade and more, governments have not had the wit to deal with core issues such as copyright, cross-media ownership and local content. Scandalously, politicians have been clueless bystanders to the implosion of media business models. They may not be “tech heads” but politicians sure understand raw power. Mr Fletcher urges the titans to improve “transparency” of their operations. Yet this misses the key point: fair pay for content. News outlets need a deal now. While our leaders are rightly focused on COVID-19, Mr Fletcher has a duty to push the foreign giants harder and to rescue local content, local stories and local voices from the cons’ rip-off virus.