Google says Canada pursuing unique approach to news compensation

Canada’s pending news media compensation legislation is based on key objectives and principles that Alphabet Inc.’s Google says is important when working with governments to create thoughtful internet regulations concerning platforms, something which the search engine has “not seen elsewhere,” according to its vice-president of news. Richard Gingras’ comments came at a Wednesday talk on the future of news compensation in Canada, hosted by independent think-tank Canada 2020. “We believe the principles that we need to follow are, one, let's make sure we protect the open internet. The Australian model certainly created risks to the open internet in terms of breaking the core principle of free linking between sites. Secondly, we think it's important to have diversity in the ecosystem… And we think it's important that regulation not enable undue government influence in the news industry itself,” Gingras said. Canadian Heritage Minister Pablo Rodriguez opened the talk discussing some preliminary points in Canada’s news media compensation model which he said will be based on the Australian model but with less government influence. “I think one of the things we want to do differently from Australia is to be more transparent in a few ways,” Rodriguez said. Rodriguez said the government needs to design news media compensation legislation that keeps the “winners or the losers” up to market forces while also making sure the whole journalism ecosystem – from the largest news outlets, the ethnic press, to freelancers – benefit. According to Rodriguez, Australia’s finance minister has a final say on who qualifies for news compensation and which publications are in an “unbalanced” situation compared to online platforms. “We don't want one politician or another to be making those decisions. So when we say that we'll be looking at that, as a model, we will, but we will adapt it to our own reality, and the fact is that we want to be probably more transparent than any other system that exists out there today,” he said. Rodriguez said a regulator will be appointed “with very specific criteria” to easily identify a platform that is a “situation of quasi-monopoly” and will require them to sit down with news organizations to negotiate a deal. If they don't get into a deal, he said, then the parties will go to mediation and, finally, an arbitration process to force a conclusion. “But in our case, it's not the minister that will designate that. It's going to be Google, it's going to be Facebook, there’s going to be criteria set by the regulator,” he said. Rodriguez said the arbitrator will be government appointed but could not say what formula will be used to determine how much a news outlet should receive. He did note it will not be based on clicks, which runs the risk of incentivizing clickbait. Rodriguez said the formula could be based on similar independent criteria already set by the revenue agencies when determining the Journalism Tax Credit – which outlines a certain number of journalists that must be employed at a news outlet and a certain percentage of original or Canadian content. “Those are precarious, or be looked at by the people that will be doing that job. It's not up to me to tell you exactly who will qualify,” he said. Gingras said he was very pleased with prior conversations the company had with Rodgriuez, and Rodriguez’s Wednesday remarks, regarding the fact that the government does not want to be closely involved in influencing how support is provided to the journalism industry. Gingras said it is not up to politicians to guide who gets funding but also said Google was not opposed to regulation as long as it is “thoughtful”. “I think, sadly, we've entered an age of bullying. And unfortunately, journalists are a target of that. I think that frankly speaks both to the importance of journalism in our society, and also important to the challenge we face in rebuilding trust in journalism and rebuilding respect for the role of journalism in our open societies in our democracies,” he said, noting that he was “struck but not surprised” by the treatment journalists faced this past month as they covered the Freedom Convoy protests in Ottawa. Gingras said Google has already struck partnership arrangements with more than 100 publications in Canada ranging from the Globe and Mail and TorStar to smaller publications in Yellowknife, through its Google Showcase platform . He said Google Showcase formula, in all the countries it operates in, is “highly influenced” by Canada’s Journalism Tax Credit criteria. “So we do look to support organizations that provide comprehensive general interest news. Whereas we can't count the number of journalists in the newsroom or audit the number of journalists in the newsroom, the other thing that we look at is how much content are they producing? How many news articles are they producing? So that does help structure the rates,” he said. Gingras said that there should be "very clear criteria" for both financial support and its purpose. He said the Australian arbitration model that was used was unbalanced and “highly, highly unpredictable.” “I think what's important to note is that the legislation that was passed was not applied to Google, we were not designated on to the code, nor was Facebook. And so we were left without a structure to guide how this work should happen,” he said. “Canada, I should point out, has a very thoughtful model in this regard, with regard to the Journalism Tax Credit and the qualifying criteria for that credit. So we think they're the component parts that can make for very thoughtful, smart legislation in Canada that, frankly, would be great for other countries to look at and follow.” Rodriguez said the Australian model has addressed the market imbalance between the tech giants and the news organizations but agreed with criticism that it benefited larger news companies over smaller ones. He said that platforms like Google and Facebook will have to demonstrate that they're contributing to the ecosystem as a whole. “So let's say for example, one of the dominant platforms comes and says ‘okay we have a deal with TorStar and another big player,’ that's fine, but it's not enough. You have to make sure that you have deals with smaller players,” he said, noting that the smaller news outlets will be able to negotiate through collective bargaining because they do not have the resources or expertise to do so on their own. Rodriguez noted that news media compensation will be the second piece of legislation his ministry will introduce to address challenges online. Earlier this month he introduced the government's second attempt to update the Broadcasting Act and bring it in line with the digital world. An online safety bill will be the third piece of legislation mandated to his department. – Reporting by Jenna Cocullo at jcocullo@thewirereport.ca and editing by Paul Park at ppark@thewirereport.ca

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Google says Canada pursuing unique approach to news compensation

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