View all newsletters
Sign up for our free email newsletters

Fighting for quality news media in the digital age.

  1. Publishers
  2. Digital Journalism
April 13, 2017updated 18 Apr 2017 9:30am

Guardian tells MPs Facebook and Google are threat to high-quality journalism

By Freddy Mayhew

In its submission to the select committee inquiry into “fake news”, The Guardian has warned that digital advertising market dominance by the likes of Facebook and Google “threatens to undermine investment in high quality journalism”.

The newspaper also said it believed “fake news” to be a “symptom of a bigger phenomenon associated with the rapid maturation of a system of networked global digital platforms which offer a scale of instant viral interconnectivity unparalleled in the history of communication”.

The inquiry, run by the Culture, Media and Sport Select Committee, closed to submissions in March and is expected to publish evidence later this month. It is understood to have received around 100 pieces of evidence with a report set to be published in September.

In its written submission, Guardian Media Group said Facebook and Google played a “pivotal role” at the “heart of the news ecosystem” and that this “poses a number of challenges for news organisations”.

“First, the primary objective of search and social platforms is not to exposure users to a wide variety of high quality news, but to retain users in order to serve advertising,” it said.

“Successive changes to platform algorithms have tended to favour viral content shared by friends and family, rather than high quality journalism.

“Second, the distribution of news within aggregated environments disintermediates journalism from the source website of that content, undermining the connection between users and trusted news brands.”

Content from our partners
MHP Group's 30 To Watch awards for young journalists open for entries
How PA Media is helping newspapers make the digital transition
Publishing on the open web is broken, how generative AI could help fix it

The Guardian also claimed the inquiry was taking place “within an evidential vacuum” because data about the impact digital technology has on media consumption in society belonged to the individual platforms, and so is not in the public domain.

Picture: Reuters/Suzanne Plunkett

Topics in this article : , ,

Email pged@pressgazette.co.uk to point out mistakes, provide story tips or send in a letter for publication on our "Letters Page" blog

Select and enter your email address Weekly insight into the big strategic issues affecting the future of the news industry. Essential reading for media leaders every Thursday. Your morning brew of news about the world of news from Press Gazette and elsewhere in the media. Sent at around 10am UK time. Our weekly does of strategic insight about the future of news media aimed at US readers. A fortnightly update from the front-line of news and advertising. Aimed at marketers and those involved in the advertising industry.
  • Business owner/co-owner
  • CEO
  • COO
  • CFO
  • CTO
  • Chairperson
  • Non-Exec Director
  • Other C-Suite
  • Managing Director
  • President/Partner
  • Senior Executive/SVP or Corporate VP or equivalent
  • Director or equivalent
  • Group or Senior Manager
  • Head of Department/Function
  • Manager
  • Non-manager
  • Retired
  • Other
Visit our privacy Policy for more information about our services, how New Statesman Media Group may use, process and share your personal data, including information on your rights in respect of your personal data and how you can unsubscribe from future marketing communications.
Thank you

Thanks for subscribing.

Websites in our network