The relationship between publishers of news and the digital platforms (especially Facebook and Google) has been fraught for almost a decade. The platforms, leveraging their sheer scale, have seized ever-greater shares of digital advertising revenue and contributed mightily to the collapse of advertising prices by stimulating the supply of advertising opportunities at a rate faster than the demand for it could ever grow. At the same time, the platforms have also driven huge amounts of traffic to the publishers — accentuating the paradox of growing audiences accompanied by falling profits.
All of this may well approach a crisis point in the year ahead. The crisis, if there is one building, began with the revelations, just after the election, of how the platforms, and especially Facebook, had been employed by the Russian government and the Trump campaign, possibly in collusion, to disseminate what has come to be called “fake news.” But the problem goes beyond that.
It is increasingly clear that the operation of the platforms, both from an antitrust perspective and even more importantly from the perspective of democratic governance, has received remarkably little scrutiny. And it seems unfortunately also true that their executives, particularly at Facebook, feel very little impulse for accountability until confronted publicly.
This all puts enormous pressure on journalists to do their job in holding these enormous enterprises to the standards of decency, legality, and democratic practice that we are all entitled to expect of the nation’s most profitable companies. Some work of this sort is being done. We need more. Journalists would do well to recognize the commercial impulses limiting such inquiries — and not to let that deter them. For the sake of all of us, moreover, they need to do this work before it is too late.
Richard J. Tofel is president of ProPublica.
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Corey Johnson The pro-fact resistance
David Skok Finding an information-life balance
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Carrie Brown-Smith Transparency finally takes off
Elizabeth Jensen Show your work
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Rodney Gibbs Tech workers turn to journalism
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Adam Thomas Sharing is caring: The year of the mentor
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Jennifer Brandel and Mónica Guzmán The editorial meeting of the future
Vanessa K. DeLuca Women’s voices take center stage
Evie Nagy Pivot to mobile video frustration
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Rachel Davis Mersey AI, with real smarts
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Brian Lam Sketchy ethics around product reviews
Alfred Hermida Going beyond mobile-first
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Julia Beizer A longer view on the pivot
Ray Soto VR reaches the next level
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Craig Newmark Working together toward sustainable solutions
Taylor Lorenz Social and media will split
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Valérie Bélair-Gagnon Seeking trust in fragmented spaces
Richard Tofel The platforms’ power demands more reporters’ attention
Kristen Muller The year of the voter
Amy Webb Listen to weak signals
Kinsey Wilson Facebook and Google: Help out or pay up
Gordon Crovitz Serving readers over advertisers
Millie Tran and Stine Bauer Dahlberg (Hint: It’s about your brand)
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Tracie Powell The muting of underserved voices
C.W. Anderson The social media apocalypse
Claire Wardle Disinformation gets worse
Steve Grove The midterms are an opportunity
Joyce Barnathan It will be harder to bury the news
Tamar Charney We get serious about algorithms
Rubina Madan Fillion Unlocking the potential of AI
Marie Gilot No assholes allowed
Damon Krukowski Reviving the alt-weekly soul
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Joanne McNeil Gatekeeping the gatekeepers
Basile Simon We need better career paths for news nerds
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Justin Kosslyn The year journalists become digital security experts
Errin Haines At the ballot, it’s time to count black women
Mariana Moura Santos Think local, act global
Nikki Usher The year of The Washington Post
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Bill Keller A growing turn to philanthropy
Nicholas Diakopoulos Fortifying social media from automated inauthenticity
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Mike Caulfield Refactoring media literacy for the networked age
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Dan Shanoff You down with OTT? (Yeah, DTC)
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