Media Owners Advocate Equitable Remuneration from Google, Facebook, and Other Tech Companies.

The Nigerian Guild of Editors (NGE) and British Broadcasting Corporation Media Action, along with over 50 individuals and organizations from 20 countries, have embraced the principles of fair compensation for publishers globally. This endorsement occurred during a conference held at the Gordon Institute of Business Science in Johannesburg, South Africa, on July 14. The conference aimed to promote media sustainability on a global scale.

During the conference, a framework was developed to facilitate negotiations between registered news businesses and major digital platforms, notably Google and Facebook, regarding the payment publishers should receive for including news content on these platforms. The ‘Big Tech and Journalism: Principles for Fair Compensation’ were launched globally at the event.

The NGE, represented by its General Secretary, Dr. Iyobosa Uwugiaren, received support from prominent journalists, media organizations, scholars, publisher groups, activists, and economists, including Nobel laureate Prof. Joseph Stiglitz. The principles aim to guide the design, implementation, and evaluation of public policy mechanisms that encourage digital platforms and news publishers to engage in fair economic terms. The principles also acknowledge freedom of expression as a fundamental human right underpinning democracy and consider public-interest journalism as a public good accessible to all.

The conference defined ‘platforms’ as social media, chat, search engines, generative artificial intelligence models, and other intermediaries, while ‘publishers’ refer to providers of original print, digital, or broadcast news using text, audio, and visual media combinations.

The conference encouraged policymakers in different jurisdictions to use diverse policies to achieve similar objectives, referring to them as ‘mechanisms’ throughout. The proposed principles should apply in various contexts, fostering collaboration between platforms and publishers.

Key highlights from the event included emphasizing the power of collective bargaining to effect change, particularly for small and medium-sized media organizations and countries with less bargaining power over tech platforms.

The principles of fair compensation encompass several elements, such as supporting and investing in public-interest journalism, encouraging plurality and diversity in the platform and publishing markets, ensuring sustainability for individual publishers and the sector as a whole by providing fair compensation for their intellectual property and content use, and adapting to evolving market conditions to develop diverse revenue streams.

The endorsement of these principles includes various individuals and organizations from different countries who contributed to the conference discussions, promoting media sustainability initiatives through legislation and competition authorities.