Google, whose original corporate motto was “Don’t be evil,” has been blocking news websites in protest of potential government regulation.
Facebook last month eliminated its news tab that curated news stories. Meta says it did this because people don’t come to Facebook for news and political content. They come for “new opportunities, passions and interests.”
I’d laugh at that one, except the situation is dangerously pushing local journalism over the edge of a cliff.
Communities can’t prosper unless they know what’s going on.
The ability to block information is why these Big Tech companies need to pay journalism entities for ad revenue their news stories help bring in. Big Tech is too big, too powerful.
Telling the truth
The threatened demise of local news places me in a nostalgic mindset as I recall local news stories I reported a long time ago. To me, they represent stories that in the future may no longer be told.
It’s 1991 in the Philadelphia suburbs. A county treasurer is blistered by the top county commissioner for giving a reporter an honest answer to a question that didn’t make the county look good.
I hear that the commissioner made an outrageous comment to the treasurer. But it takes six months for me to convince the treasurer to put the comment on the record, print it and cite him as the source. Finally, he relents.
I report how during the smackdown by his boss, the treasurer says, “All I did was tell the truth. What am I supposed to tell a reporter?”
The commissioner’s answer: “Don’t you know there are at least five different ways to tell the truth? I bet you never heard it put quite that way, did you?”
After that, the commissioner loses reelection and retires from politics.
U.S. Senate bill stalled
Research for this Watchdog column about Google and Facebook began when I saw a full-page newspaper ad in the Denton Record-Chronicle.
The News Media Alliance message: “Tell Your Member of Congress to Co-Sponsor the Journalism Competition and Preservation Act now.”
The what?
My curiosity sparked, I learned that the Senate bill would require companies like Google and Meta to negotiate with journalism companies. Big tech would pay advertising proceeds to the journalism producers when their news stories appear next to ads.
The bill is stalled. Neither the House nor the Senate has passed it.
If passed, the bill would provide funding to strengthen local news reporting.
Without local journalists watchdogging our public officials, leaders can easily turn local governments into their own personal fiscal play toys.
The backroom mayor
It’s 1989. A Philly suburban ex-mayor is convicted of racketeering and sent to prison. Investigators believe he has mob ties.
He won’t talk to me, but in my story I explain that while he was in prison, his secretary was elected mayor. Once he is released, she becomes the figurehead. I call him the feudal overlord. He secretly runs the city from a back room.
The people in his community try not to say his name. Instead, it is usually only “he” and “him.”
After my story appears, this is no longer a secret.
Bullying in California
Google is testing whether to remove its news tab. It is blocking some news links for some Californians. Yet California has not even passed a local version of the U.S. Senate bill.
In a blog post, Google called the throttling of news links part of a “short-term test.”
If the bill passes, Google says that there could be “significant changes to the services we can offer Californians and the traffic we can provide to California publishers.”
A California state senator who introduced the bill is quoted in the Washington Post calling Google’s response “clearly an abuse of power and demonstrates extraordinary hubris.”
Facebook, which I believe already downgrades news, also said in a blog post it is considering blocking all news links in California if the bill were to pass.
With the removal of its news tab, Facebook says, “news publishers will continue to have access to their Facebook accounts and pages.”
Sure, but these postings will continue to get buried and likely won’t show up in individuals’ feeds, which, I believe, is already happening.
Journalism isn’t free
The hope on the horizon, journalism professor Jake Batsell of Southern Methodist University says, is that the local news void growing across America would be filled by small nonprofit outlets backed by philanthropic donors. Award-winning stories such as The Dallas Morning News’ series “Deadly Fake: Inside fentanyl’s grip on North Texas” help make the case for donors to support local news, he says.
“Journalism is not free,” he adds. “It’s important to find ways to keep it going.”
Crony patronage
It’s 1990. I suspect that the local political boss is using his influence to get his neighborhood cronies high-paying government jobs. I take a map of his neighborhood and use pushpins to show his friends and their jobs. I see that most of these patronage jobholders live clustered in his neighborhood.
His one-time paperboy is now the county district attorney.
“The ideal way to pick somebody to work for you is somebody you know,” the D.A. tells me.
Other jobs he fills are: U.S. Marshal; head of the convention bureau; director of the local finance authority; assistant to the U.S. Secretary of Education; regional director for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency; chief of the U.S. Mass Transportation Administration and the state Senate majority leader.
Also, six members of his family have government jobs, as does he.
Until then, it’s a story that was never told.
Freedom of the press
Journalism professor Dorothy Bland of the Mayborn School of Journalism at the University of North Texas reminds that the Society of Professional Journalists Code of Ethics states, “Seek truth and report it.”
“People are confused about what is news,” she says. “News and information need to be vetted by journalists, people who were trained to sort truth and discern.
“Journalism is about democracy in America and we’re central to democracy. Journalism is a public service. Community journalism should be the heart of America.”
She reminds me of the Watergate era slogan: Follow the money.
To which I add, there are not five ways to tell the truth. There’s usually only one, and it’s the job of my colleagues and me to find it.
Become a citizen of Watchdog Nation.
Join Dave Lieber and learn to be a super-consumer.
Watchdog newsletter: Sign up for The Watchdog’s FREE weekly newsletter to keep up: click here.
Subscribe: PLEASE support The Watchdog’s brand of straightforward journalism designed to save you time, money and aggravation. Treat yourself to a digital subscription (and make him look good!) by visiting https://dallasnews.com/subscribe
Watchdog Home Page: You can’t afford to miss The Watchdog’s two reports each week. Follow our latest reporting always at The Watchdog home page which features all recent columns.
Watch this free training video from Dave: https://youtu.be/uhUEUCNKGjc
Facebook: Connect with The Watchdog on our Facebook group. Search for “DallasNews Watchdog Posse.”
The Dallas Morning News Watchdog column is the 2019 winner of the top prize for column writing from the National Society of Newspaper Columnists. The contest judge called his winning entries “models of suspenseful storytelling and public service.”
Read his winning columns:
* Helping a waitress who was harmed by an unscrupulous used car dealer
