What is NMA doing about it?
The News Media Association has presented these concerns to Ministers, parliamentarians and regulators. Following this work, the NMA welcomed the launch of the Competition and Markets Authority’s market study into the online platforms such as Google and Facebook and has outlined a series of measures and potential areas for the study to look at.
In particular, the NMA has called for a new Digital Markets Unit to be established by statute and given effective monitoring and enforcement powers to oversee the new remedies, including drawing up and overseeing a binding code of conduct for online platforms of “strategic market status.”
Other recommendations include requiring the tech companies - the “unavoidable business partners” for news media - to give reasonable notice of any changes to terms of business or algorithms which impact on news publishers and clearly explaining the reasons for doing so.
The NMA is also campaigning hard for robust exemptions from any new regulatory framework for the tech giants, designed to crackdown on online harms, and from Information Commissioner’s Office proposals to introduce an age appropriate design code and standards for websites. The NMA fears the ICO proposals could “wreak havoc” upon news media.
The NMA also commissioned research by Deloitte that highlighted the £5.3bn contribution of newspapers to the UK economy and their peerless role as investors in original news.
*Sources AA/WARC and eMarketer.