From “The Grim Reaper of Journalism: Google, Apple, Facebook“
High-quality journalism has been recognized since America’s founding as fundamental to the functioning of our democracy. But now, journalism in America is facing an existential threat from the monopolistic control of tech giants like Google, Facebook, and Apple. Big tech’s dominance over the digital advertising market and their unrivaled capacity to monetize its platforms are having drastic effects on journalism as a whole
BIG TECH IS TO BLAME Newspapers who adapted and survived the last digital revolution did so through advertising. But today’s digital market is dominated by Google and Facebook — and their stranglehold is only tightening each year. Revenue from digital advertising that used to go to news publishers is now ending up in big tech’s pockets instead.
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- 63% OF DIGITAL AD REVENUE IS CONTROLLED BY GOOGLE AND FACEBOOK
- 12% OF DIGITAL AD REVENUE IS CONTROLLED BY AMAZON, TWITTER, SNAPCHAT, MICROSOFT, & OATH
- 25% OF DIGITAL AD REVENUE IS SHARED BY ALL OTHER COMPANIES, INCLUDING NEWS PUBLISHERS
- 90% OF ALL NEW DIGITAL AD REVENUE EACH YEAR IS SWALLOWED BY GOOGLE AND FACEBOOK
My take: The crisis is real and I like the map, but the text is pretty sloppy, even for a bunch of laid-off journalists. For one thing, there is no Oath anymore. More important, they put Apple the headline but didn’t even try to make the case against it.
https://twitter.com/savethenews/status/1176601547494572032?s=21
John Gruber made a point about how email newsletters are seeing a small resurgence; Stratechery, Above Avalon, etc… new articles show up in your inbox and are immediately accessible to the reader. There’s no slogging through login’s, pop-up messages about privacy, auto-playing video ads, pop-up ads or requests from the site to provide notifications, etc…
The media has produced a nation of unconscious people, an indoctrinated people, a people fed only partisan information and opinions targeted to confirm their own bias, a people morbidly obese in mind and spirit by perpetual junk food of no less than propaganda. It is understood, even within the industry itself, that one of the sad things about contemporary journalism is that it actually matters little.
If the news media continues its current trajectory then it is incumbent on the public to sharpened their hatchets and go to work. Journalism is under withering fire these days from political ideologues working in the industry to use the media to press their political agendas. I once believed that money controlled our political system, but the average person understands the culprit is the press’ desire to control government policy.
I now understand Walter Lippmann when he described journalism as “… the last refuge of the vaguely talented.” The press narrowly defines democracy to include only people like themselves.
In summary, one of the sad notes about contemporary journalism is that it actually matters very little. Seriously! Today’s press corp narrowly define democracy to include only people like themselves; not like the “deplorables” in Heartland America.
“… I once believed that money controlled our political system, but the average person understands the culprit is the press…”
and who/what do you think controls the press?
However big the ego of a journalist might be it is dwarfed but that of the billionaire who owns the publication.
My Sept 28 $21.50/$200 Call Spread is in the money ($220.70), today is the last day to trade. In the past time premium at this point is about 30 cents. For the day, so far, time premium has been running around 50 cents.
This means an investor could buy the contract at about $2.00, and should AAPL hold a $220.00 print through the Close, the investor will make about 25% on the day.
Most unusual.
Exactly. It used to be journalists aspired to be Edward R Murrow. Today they aspire to be Woodward and Bernstein.
Woodward and Bernstein told the truth, but they brought an Administration down. Today’s journalists aren’t so much interested in the news as bringing someone down.
And Puh-lease stop using “amazing” as an adjective, not everything thing is.
We do have a new breed of news websites, with voluntary subscriptions, which are usually full independent reporting and only suffering the age old problem of Journo opinions sometimes getting in the way.