CLIP: Google's role in the future of newspapers

Do newspapers have a shot?

Newspapers’ business model is under severe pressure. We all know that, so I wanted to find out how bad it is by going over to Silicon Valley’s hometown newspaper, the San Jose Mercury News, and meeting with Mac Tully, the President and Publisher.

It was interesting to hear how the economic downturn is going and how he’s moving more and more of the newsroom over to the San Jose Mercury News’ online efforts. Plus we talk about Twitter and Facebook and a bunch of other stuff in this 16-minute interview including the role of citizen journalists alongside professional journalists.

France: Google's role in the future of newspapers

Posted by Lauren Drablier on December 15, 2008 at 1:39 PM

At a recent meeting in Paris, head of Google News, Josh Cohen, met with the French media as part of an initiative by the French government to seek solutions for the survival of newspapers.

According to Pierre Conte, president of PubliPrint, "for all publishers, in the last few months, something in our relationship with Google has been broken.  Six months ago, we thought we had finally found the right business model, but now, with the current crisis, the change has happened very quickly in our mind with the new Google...You are becoming our worst enemy".

Conte continued, "we are not asking for pity, but for sharing. We want better revenue sharing. That is how we understand the basis of our partnership."

Julien Billot the director of new digital business at Lagadère Active shares the industry's chary attitude towards Google, "in a time of crisis, your business model has become predatory. The pricing model (of online advertising) is currently threatening the entire industry." 

However, according to Google executives, they intend to be "part of the solution" and they have a "huge moral imperative to help newspapers."  Cohen believes that "search engines should be on the same side of the table.  Google can't solve declining circulation... Nobody, not even Google, can reverse this trend. There should be significant change in your (newspapers) business model".

Cohen presented three areas in which he believes newspapers and Google can work together: getting more traffic via better distribution of content, engaging audience better and keeping them for longer and increasing the rates they charge via new tools.

Bruno Patino, former CEO at Le Monde InterActif and now managing director of Radio France Culture, believes that Google has a "social responsibility for news organizations" and that they "must take it seriously."