Page 21 - Newspaper of the Future Case Study

We don’t know what we don’t know!

Not only do companies want to show you only the adverts you want to see but
also the news you want to see. BuzzFeed is an ad agency which has a news
agency wrapped around its outside it makes all its money from the ad agency
and then uses the distribution it gets from its journalism to build its audience
which it then sells to advertisers.

Likewise, both Facebook and Google get their revenue streams from
advertising. But in the case of Facebook 80% of Americans get their news
from Facebook. But what does Facebook actually offer? Does Facebook only
show you the news you want to see and if so, what impact does this have on
editorial freedom? The answer is that nobody knows how Facebook chooses
the things to put into users feeds. What used to be an editorial job is now done
by algorithms which are rigorously protected.

Perhaps what publishers should be focusing on is that kind of meaningful
engagement with their news brands, better serving a smaller stratum of readers
willing to pay. This however, pales against the tide of now-standalone
newspaper chains trying to cut their ways into the “newsrooms of the future.”