Quote of the Day: “The first lesson of economics is scarcity: There is never enough of anything to satisfy all those who want it. The first lesson of politics is to disregard the first lesson of economics.” Thomas Sowell
Well, it seems that every reporter and columnist at TheRecord is jumping on the “DEFANGING BIG TECH” bandwagon. Today Luisa D’Amato is the person assigned to this nonsense. I wasn’t even going to comment on this, but instead, I’m going to copy almost her entire column and point out just what a ridiculous position that TorStar and their servants are taking. So, here goes…
She starts by stating the obvious: “Facebook and Google. They’ve become our closest friends. We’re constantly checking in: Who’s got a birthday today? What have my friends been doing? How many likes did I get on my new profile picture? And Google: It’s our window to the world. Anything you want to know is magically there with a tap on the keyboard.” Yup – got it. Thank you. After some more self-evident statements she continues: “Both Google and Facebook share news stories and photos online in order to increase traffic and sell digital advertising to readers. They didn’t create this content and they don’t pay for it, even though they make a fortune from digital advertising while people read.“ O.K. so what? She says: “That’s not fair. These stories and photos cost money to produce. Journalists need to be paid like everyone else.” What’s not fair about it? She suggests: “Could the publishers of the newspapers who produced the stories refuse to share the content? Technically, yes. Realistically, no.” Oh – so now we come to the heart of the issue. Newspapers pump out digital equivalents of their articles so that users will view their pages. These online articles also contain advertising and these views generate revenue for the paper. This isn’t new. But: “News media are caught in a trap. Google is so big that if news media refuse to share stories and photos through Google, they may not have a presence. Given Google’s near-monopoly as a search engine, that’s impractical.” Congratulations Luisa – this is the first time I think that anyone has actually recognized the symbiotic relationship between content providers and so called “Big Tech”. Most content providers like retail merchants etc. really, really, want Google and others to index their sites – a whole cottage industry has evolved trying to manipulate Google search engine standings since more page views directly equals more revenue. She tells us that: “But, instead of driving readers to the news organizations’ websites, Google keeps its readers close to home. It uses “snippets” from their articles that offer just enough information that most readers won’t click to see the full article on the newspaper’s website. In June 2019, for the first time, a majority of all browser-based searches on Google resulted in zero clicks, according to a research paper published in June by the U.S.-based News Media Alliance.” Wow. So Millennials with their 10 second attention span do not click on links. Gee, who would have guessed that??? (cough) And: “Now, news media are launching a campaign to get hundreds of millions of dollars in compensation for the lost advertising revenue. They want the government to help impose more even-handed agreements, and meaningful penalties for the internet giants when they do break the rules.” O.K. so, here is where she drives the train off the tracks. First of all, to talk about “lost advertising” is completely disingenuous of her. Think about it. If Google and Facebook stopped linking to articles, would newspapers’ revenue increase? Of course not. Revenue is completely driven by page views. If the tech companies did not link to newspaper articles, then page views would drop and newspapers’ revenue most definitely go down!!! What doesn’t Ms D’Amato understand about this rather simple cause and effect scenario. And now comes the whining: “I care about this, because journalism matters deeply to me. But you might be wondering why you should care. After all, isn’t the private sector a Darwinian world, in which the weak are quickly eaten by the strong?” Oh please. She works for TorStar. And maybe she should get a good understanding of Darwin’s theory – and maybe she should just realize how TorStar got so big – they devoured papers like TheRecord and a whole bunch of other smaller papers. It’s called the free market. She continues: “I have two answers: One is that the private sector is highly regulated to ensure the public good. Your food and drink is inspected to make sure it won’t poison you. Manufactured goods are regulated by trade agreements. Cultural industries are protected too. Broadcasters (and soon, streaming companies like Netflix, too) must offer and pay for Canadian content.” What nonsense. To try to pretend that food is like news is garbage. TorStar is a completely left wing, liberal media company. And they do try to poison us, don’t they? The fact that culture is protected is clearly not something to celebrate. I point to the literally dozens of people that watch the CBC and wonder about the $1.5 Billion that goes to subsidize this disaster. This is not a strong argument to make to support more government intervention and regulation. She states: “The other is that news media are not only private businesses, but also a public service. We know the public is looking for news they can trust, gathered by professionals.” Yes they are and that’s why newspapers are going down the drain. They aren’t being murdered by Facebook, they are committing suicide by their own destructive actions. Go woke, go broke – as they say… And finally: “Who would ask the tough questions of community leaders and who would search for information about the issues that are important to you? Who would challenge your viewpoint by presenting a point of view you don’t agree with? Without this kind of information, people can’t make good decisions about their society. An informed public is the foundation of a strong democracy.” I simply point to her 11 September 2020 column and would ask her if this column had “information about the issues that are important” or if I could “make good decisions about… society” after reading it. This column is a new low for her. Too bad.
So if Ms D’Amato is so concerned about asking “the tough questions of community leaders”, then I have a question she for her: Most Record reporters (with the minor exception of Jeff Outhit) praised the supposed benefits of the ION train. There were many op-eds and editorials glorifying this horrendous expenditure. With this in mind, how much money has the ION system lost since the beginning of the project and where can ordinary taxpayers go to find this information? And since you are so concerned about who “…would challenge your viewpoint by presenting a point of view you don’t agree with”, can you please point to just one editorial or op-ed, in the last few years, where Donald Trump’s accomplishments and achievements as President were listed or at least acknowledged? Or can you point to one editorial or op-ed that didn’t unjustifiable criticize the President or when he was a Presidential nominee? Or, since Peter Shawn Taylor no longer writes columns for TheRecord, can you point to a single, clearly conservative columnist that writes for your paper on a regular (like once a month…) basis? Or can you point to a columnist (with the exception of maybe the neutral, fact filled columns by Sylvain Charlebois) that isn’t a left wing liberal? I could go on, but I think I made my point.
By the way, I love the Dining columns recently. I’ve actually ordered from a couple of places based on the write-ups in the Arts and Life section. Great work by Alex Bielak, Jasmine Mangalaseril and others.