MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. — At a time when Internet tech giants Facebook and Google face increasing demands they pay for news content aggregated on their platforms, Google announced today it will start paying publishers for content through a new licensing program when it launches a new “news experience” later this year.
In a blog post, Brad Bender, Google vice-president of product management for news, writes the licensing program “will help participating publishers monetize their content through an enhanced storytelling experience that lets people go deeper into more complex stories, stay informed and be exposed to a world of different issues and interests.”
So far, Google has signed agreements with local and national publications in Germany, Australia and Brazil, “with more to come soon”, Bender writes. Participating publishers listed in the blog are Germany’s Spiegel Group (publisher of Der Spiegel), Australian local newspapers InQueensland and InDaily, and Brazilian regional media company Diarios Associados.
“We have been actively working with our publisher partners on this new product which will launch first on Google News and Discover. We are currently engaged in discussions with many more partners and plan to sign more in the coming months,” writes Bender.
Bender also says Google will offer to pay for free access for users to read paywalled articles on a publisher’s site. “This will let paywalled publishers grow their audiences and open an opportunity for people to read content they might not ordinarily see,” Bender writes.
This endeavour builds on the previous efforts of the Google News Initiative, Bender says, which have included a global journalism emergency relief fund launched in April in response to the Covid-19 crisis.
However, at least one journalist views today’s announcement as little more than a PR exercise by Google. Joshua Benton’s article on NiemanLab.org also provides more information (courtesy of the Wall Street Journal) about the nature of the “news experience” Google is planning to launch later this year.
It’s not known if Google will expand this effort to include broadcasters, whose content is aggregated the same way, in this initiative. We have asked but have not yet heard an answer.
