Huntington, W.Va.-based newspaper publisher HD Media has filed a federal anti-trust lawsuit against Google and Facebook for alleged price-fixing in advertising. The publisher, which owns the Charleston Gazette-Mail and the Herald-Dispatch in Huntington says it hopes "every other newspaper in America" will join in.
"The lawsuit focuses on what it portrays as illegal monopolistic practices by the tech companies, and on a secret agreement — code-named Jedi Blue — between Google and Facebook, which is also at the heart of a separate, price-fixing lawsuit brought by several state attorneys general," Margaret Sullivan reports for The Washington Post.
At the heart of the lawsuit is the haunting question of "What if?" Sullivan writes: "What if local newspapers had been able to compete successfully for digital advertising revenue as their readers moved online? What if the powerful 'duopoly' of Google and Facebook hadn’t sucked up all the oxygen in this new digital economy, essentially asphyxiating traditional media by depriving it of the ad dollars needed to survive? Would the newspaper industry be healthier — and therefore would our democracy be healthier? Is there still time for an industry to get up off its death bed?"
Google and Facebook say the Jedi Blue agreement was legal and above board, Sullivan reports. She notes that both companies have contributed to journalistic causes over the years, but Mountain State Spotlight investigative reporter Eric Eyre, formerly of the Gazette-Mail, told Sullivan he's unimpressed: "They try to make up for what they’ve done by donating huge sums of money to support local journalism while they’re killing local journalism."
Click here for a video interview about the lawsuit from Editor & Publisher Publisher Mike Blinder, lawsuit co-counsel Paul T. Farrell Jr. and HD Media’s VP of News and Executive Editor Lee Wolverton.
No comments:
Post a Comment