Friend and Foe: The Platform Press at the Heart of Journalism

The relationship between technology platforms and news publishers has endured a fraught 18 months. Even so, the external forces of civic and regulatory pressure are hastening a convergence between the two at an accelerated rate beyond what we saw when we published our first report from this study in March 2017. Journalism has played a critical part in pushing for accountability into the practices of companies such as Facebook, Google, and Twitter, yet newsrooms are increasingly oriented toward understanding and leveraging platforms as part of finding a sustainable future. In the latest phase of our multiyear research into the relationship between platforms and publishers, we found that despite negative rhetoric and sentiment in newsrooms toward technology companies, there is a rapid and ongoing merging in the functions of publishers and platforms, and an often surprisingly high level of involvement from platform companies in influencing news production. 

Our key findings from this phase of research are:

• According to a survey of over 1,100 working journalists conducted in partnership with NORC, journalists have a conflicted relationship with social media. While the vast majority of journalists said they had adapted practices in the newsroom in response to social platforms, an overwhelming number (86 percent) felt that social media had contributed to a decline in trust in journalism.
• Half of the survey respondents said social media platforms (such as Facebook) strengthened the relationship with their audience, while 22 percent said it had weakened as a result of social media platforms; 56 percent of respondents said platforms should take “a great deal/quite a bit” of responsibility for financially supporting journalism; and 76 percent of respondents said that Facebook wasn’t doing enough to “combat the problem of fake news and misinformation” on its platform, while 71 percent said the same about Twitter, and 65 percent about Google. Facebook consistently drew the strongest criticism from publishers in all areas of our research.
• Despite the apparent toxicity of the rhetoric toward technology companies in general, and Facebook in particular, this did not appear to diminish the amount of material publishers directed through social platforms. We have, however, seen a sharp adjustment from publishers away from creating material which lives entirely on third-party platforms. As publishers practiced a “conscious uncoupling” from social media’s influence, platform companies have intensified their own efforts to remain involved in shaping the future of journalism. Whether this is a long term strategy or a public relations initiative remains to be seen.
• Of the 12 news outlets we tracked over an 18-month period—CNN, Fox News, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, Chicago Tribune, Los Angeles Times, New York Daily News, BuzzFeed, BuzzFeed News, HuffPost, and Vox—the larger, better-resourced publishers consistently posted more content to a greater range of platforms. The smaller outlets were almost entirely focused on Apple News, Facebook, and Twitter. This was particularly pronounced at the three regional metros, the Chicago Tribune, Los Angeles Times, and New York Daily News. By the time of our final analysis, in March 2018, just one percent of posts made by these three local publishers went outside of Apple News, Twitter, and Facebook.
• Larger publishers still have more access to platform partnership teams and product offerings than smaller and local publications. Local news publishers, in particular, have been hit hard by the loss of advertising revenue. It’s becoming clear that attempting to translate the advertising-driven business model of news publishing from print to digital by posting high volumes of content to social platforms and adopting platform-native products like Facebook’s Instant Articles—which more than half its original partners abandoned once payments to use it ran out—has been a failure. Newer efforts by technology companies, especially Facebook, to help local journalism have borne little fruit, and in some cases have been counterproductive. For instance, even the Facebook News Feed algorithm change announced in January 2018 to prioritize interactions with local news caused a steep drop off in some outlets’ website engagement figures.
• Platforms continue to shape both the style and substance of publisher content, either directly with financial incentives (Facebook has offered publishers substantial advertising credits on its platform to participate in product rollouts), or indirectly (Apple accepts pitches from publishers seeking to be featured in its news app). There are no signs that this will change. Since news broke in late 2017 that both Apple and Facebook had one-billion-dollar budgets for original programming, Facebook reportedly offeredthree to four million dollars per episode of new programming, and Google-owned YouTube offered two to three million dollars for the same, there has been a distinct pivot toward creating video content among the most well-resourced publishers we interviewed. One publisher told us that platforms are looking toward more “Netflix-style” deals and treating publishers like production companies.
• Current platform strategies toward news publishing are being shaped less by market forces and more by a mixture of civic duty and fear of regulation. This is leading to the adoption of much more explicit “editorial” practices, including hiring more newsroom journalists and human moderators, and active engagement in other strategies to elevate “higher-quality” news. This will inevitably lead to technology companies having an even greater influence in deciding which news publishers benefit from the environment, and what news consumers see in their feeds and search results.
• Major concerns persist over the opacity of algorithm changes, the control of the relationship with audiences, the financial support for smaller-scale journalism, and promotion, deletion, or suppression of different types of news stories.
• We anticipate much more investment from platform companies in curation, whether human or automated, and more resources directed at journalism practice. One unexpected outcome of the past two years of revelation and public debate about platform roles in news has been an expeditious cultural shift within the companies themselves.

Our research suggests that negotiations between platforms and publishers have become more mature and realistic. As the platform press grows up, however, there is still an insufficiently stable environment for a consistent supply of news at all levels. And there remain a number of outstanding issues about the power and opacity of technology companies.