Are search engines stealing newspapers' content?

Sam Zell might be new to the newspaper business, but he’s already publicly embraced the “Internet is a parasite on newspapers” meme.

“If all the newspapers in America did not allow Google to steal their content for nothing, what would Google do, and how profitable would Google be?” the Los Angeles Times reported Zell saying to Stanford University class this week. Zell has agreed to takeover Tribune Co., which owns The Times.

Zell’s comment is as ill-informed as outgoing ASNE president Dave Zeeck’s were to his organization last week. I’ve been searching the Web through Google, and reading Google News, for years, and can’t recall Google publishing complete newspaper stories under the Google brand.

Yes, Google hyperlinks page titles and publishes short snippets of those pages’ content beneath them on its search engine result and Google News pages. Those links have helped millions of readers find newspaper stories that they would not have read otherwise.

Without newspaper content on Google News and in Google’s search engine result pages [SERPs], newspapers would face an even more dire future, as those millions of readers would find instead other, non-newspaper sources of news and information. And Google wouldn’t lose much at all. Google News doesn’t run ads. And I suspect that Google’s AdWords program would continue to haul in billions of dollars annually even without newspaper.coms in the SERPs.

Surely, not everyone in the newspaper industry shares Zell’s extreme view. For all the ignorance that certain newspaper managers exhibit in public forums, the newspaper industry employs many more sharp individuals with deep knowledge of how the Web works and how to make money from it. They’re found in the online departments of newspaper.coms and they deserve their chance to call the shots on how newspapers will approach the Internet.

The Zeeck and Zell attitude won’t save newspapers, and will serve only to further isolate them from a new and growing generation of Web-savvy readers.

I e-mailed several newspaper.com managers to ask them what they thought of Zell’s comment, and how they think the newspaper industry ought to approach the search engines.

Chris Jennewein
Vice President, Internet Operations, Union-Tribune Publishing Co.

I think newspapers should welcome search engines because they drive traffic to our sites. Our business on the Internet is all about building audience, and audiences find our sites through search engines. Fighting the new reality of Internet search is ultimately self-defeating for our industry.

Ken Sands
Online publisher, www.SpokesmanReview.com

Well, first reaction is that Zell is talking primarily about Google News, not Google itself. He suggests Google wouldn’t have anything without the content from media, and that’s just not true. Google News aggregates links. It doesn’t steal the content so much as organize it in a way that’s meaningful for lots of people. Mainstream media could have done the same thing but didn’t have the vision, the organizational capabilities or the technical skill.

Google argues that it’s a partner of the MSM, sending readers to each site (for free!). I can’t argue with that. Almost 40 percent of the visitors to our site come through Google searches. Those are typically one-time, one-story readers, but they do account for a huge amount of our traffic. There’s a legitimate question about whether these inflated numbers are meaningful… not sure this does our local advertisers much good.

On balance, I’d say Google does more good than harm. The Google Ad Sense for Newspapers alpha project is a good example. They’ve sent advertising to print newspapers for several months without taking a cut of the action. When the program goes to beta, they will begin taking a small percentage. They seem to understand that their best way of making money is to make sure that everyone else makes money, too.

Will Google some day dominate the media world? Quite possibly. But for now at least, it’s sure hard to pass up their goodies.

Steve Yelvington
Internet strategist, Morris Communications

Sam Zell’s comments make a lot of editors feel good, and editors need something to feel good about these days. But news search and aggregation are just a piddling part of Google’s portfolio of services. Google doesn’t even run advertising in its news channel, so claiming that newspaper content is behind Google’s profitability is just saber-rattling.

Google is a significant threat, but not because it’s “stealing” newspaper content. They’re rolling up a lot of local small business money that newspapers can and should be chasing. We’re not going to get that business by sitting around in our newspaper offices and wishing for the return of sideburns and bell-bottom trousers. We need to be out creating new solutions and coming up with better ideas.

I’ll post additional comments as they hit my in-box. Or you can post your thoughts through the comment button below.

About Robert Niles

Robert Niles is the former editor of OJR, and no longer associated with the site. You may find him now at http://www.sensibletalk.com.

Comments

  1. Robert: This column is particularly appropriate in light of the AFP-Google license deal (if you’ll excuse a bit of self-promotion: I recently wrote about this deal). Old-school newspaper publishers who continue to see content within spheres are going to be steamrolled by the next generation of news. Search, aggregators, RSS, and the thousands of Web 2.0 (and 3.0 … and 4.0) applications coming down the road aim to separate content from its form. This is a frightening prospect for folks who don’t realize an opportunity exists. Savvy publishers can *use* Google News to introduce new readers/users to their content and they can use the influx of page views to boost their ad revenue. Where’s the downside here? Google isn’t stealing content — it’s pointing to content. There’s a huge difference and the sooner MSM realizes this the sooner they’ll adapt to the new system.

  2. From Anthony Moor
    Orlando Sentinel
    The Sentinel is a Tribune newspaper

    I do think we need to have a new relationship with search engines like Google and Yahoo! And I think they would agree.

    Until the Internet revolution, it was the news and information companies which provided the platforms for advertisers. Now, the advertising we depend on is shifting to these “Web organization companies” which don’t “do” news.

    However, they depend, in part, on robust, professional newsrooms to provide content that drives a significant amount of traffic to the Web. So it makes sense that we would seek to extract fair value for our work product. That’s a business deal that should be struck.

    None of which is to downplay the critical need for us as news organizations to transform ourselves so we can better serve a public which demands its news in new ways, and wishes to be participants as well as consumers. That’s a different issue, along with the fact that the Internet has made everyone a publisher, which increases our competition, forcing us to refocus on what makes our journalism unique.

  3. Sergey Brin and Lawrence Page were Ph.D. candidates in the Computer Science department of Stanford when they published a paper titled The Anatomy of a Large-Scale Hypertextual Web Search Engine. Look it up at Google.

  4. Before dismissing him, consider for a moment that the billionaire has some experience and insight of value. I actually think Sam Zell has a point, and I’ve explained why on my blog.

    One clarification of your post:

    Google News does make money from posting the news. It drives up links to newspaper Web sites, creating loads of remnant inventory on those sites. Since local advertisers have no interest in these one-off page views, then Google convinces these sites to use Google ads for filling the remnant space. This isn’t coincidence. Google understands the effect of driving up remnant inventory with Google News.

    Google, like any multi-billion dollar company, is in it to make money. They’re not featuring Google News prominently and running it just for kicks.

  5. Okay, but in that case, the newspaper is making money along with Google. So Google is creating value for newspapers. Which was my point.

    IMO, Google’s creating more value for newspapers than vice versa. But few newspapers are earning anywhere near the full dollar amount of the value that Google (and other search engines and news aggregators) are creating for them. Stubborn adherance to old geographic and pricing models keep newspapers feeling ripped off by Google, et al, rather than empowered.

  6. Ask users in your market where they get local news, and both Google and Yahoo will be on the list. This is a serious problem for our newspaper brands.

    Who is going to own your content in the eyes of the reader? Google users thank Google for the content (provided via links), not you. Don

  7. Nothing like a good journalism debate on a holiday 😉 …

    “Who is going to own your content in the eyes of the reader?”

    I don’t think the reader cares. He/she is going to go to the place that’s easiest, fastest and most useful. It’s more a matter of “How do we get readers to embrace what we produce?”

    Now, I know most people aren’t RSS power users, but the rise of RSS and the disassociation of content from its container is a process that’s going to continue. As it does, news organizations are going to need their content to act as a publicity tool because the content (be it a headline, a deck, a full story or a package) is the thing that’s going to draw people in from RSS, news aggregators and search engines.

    If local brands can one-up Google/Yahoo or make their information more relevant, interesting, entertaining, contextual, etc. the reader will click and stay. If they can’t do that, the reader will go elsewhere. This is why folks in the newsroom need to understand how the Web is different from other forms of media and then execute on those differences. If they don’t, powerhouses like Google and Yahoo are going to swoop in and take advantage of the opportunity.

    I also think the content “ownership” concept needs to change. Newspapers, magazines and TV programs are solid containers for content, but the Web disrupts this idea. The content is disconnected and re-sorted and recategorized on the fly by search engines and Web 2.0 applications. It’s a mistake to try to impose the print/TV container model on the Web. It can be certainly be *used* — there’s no harm in having a site and a brand — but the freeform Web model has a lot of momentum and I see little value in fighting it (i.e. clamping down with subscriptions and registrations, limiting RSS, etc.).

    Instead of worrying if people are coming to a local news site, the masterminds behind that site should look for ways to localize content from a variety of sources — how can they create a niche aggregator? How can they provide focus and context to all this information? Rather than fear Google/Yahoo and other aggregators, local folks should find ways to absorb the idea into their own localized strengths.

  8. The only thing missing from this post and the attached comments is a discussion on online subscription models. If Zell and Zeeck want to be protective…put up a wall! I’ve heard more about newspaper.com subscription ideas surfacing again, but don’t see any actual attempts by leadership to make this happen. Maybe it’s time for new subscription models to emerge.

  9. From Jim Brady
    Executive Editor, Washingtonpost.com

    Personally, I don’t see Google as “stealing” our content. It’s not as if they’re retemplating our articles and getting the page views and ad revenue. Instead, they index our stuff and drive a lot of people to our site. Sure, the fact that people use Google News as a starting point makes them a rival as well. I imagine there will be more talks between Google and newspapers in the coming years, but I don’t think having news organizations demonizing Google makes a lot of sense. I feel the same about the other search engines as well; they are indeed competitors, but they also drive a lot of traffic to us…

  10. Andy,

    Subscription models have, at best, a mixed record on the Web. The Wall Street Journal and New York Times have achieved some financial success with theirs (though outside critics continue to insist that such success has come at a greater opportunity cost of lost readership and ad revenue.) But the L.A. Times and the Columbus Dispatch failed wth their attempts, which both abandoned, but not after crippling loss of market share.

    I wonder who’s the priority here? Readers or advertisers? Sure, you can cut off delivery channels that deliver readers your current advertisers do not want. But why not instead go after new advertisers who do want the readers these new channels are delivering?

  11. This has been going on for years and most people working in new media for newspapers recognized the value of a global aggregator and news search engine a long time ago.

    Google News has built the service that New Century Network should have built, could have built, might have built had the owning-managing newspaper partners been able to get along.

    Anybody can easily opt out of search angines. Any newspaper that doesn’t want its content showing up in search engines can “fix” this “problem” by placing a robots.txt file in the htdocs directory containing the following lines:

    User-agent: *
    Disallow: /

    That’s your bargaining chip. It’s cheap and easy. Try it and see if Google’s mighty empire comes crashing down.

    I don’t think so.

    We actually use robots.txt to exclude limited portions of our newspaper websites from the index and search services.

    I have no desire to be the unpaid provider of Associated Press content to Google, so several years ago I had our tech guys block spiders from our AP Online feed.

    Our advertising-driven business model is based almost entirely on local advertisers, so random visitors from Google News aren’t of any interest to us. And AP content tends to attract random visitors.

    But visitors with a specific interest in one of our newspaper markets — Augusta, Jacksonville, Savannah, Lubbock, et cetera — are also interesting to our advertisers. So we do not discourage spidering of our local content.

    As newspapers join in an effective advertising network with geotargeting capability — and I’m talking about the various Amigos’ pending deal with Yahoo — the economic equation is going to shift.

    Random pageviews will become valuable. Not as valuable as local pageviews, but valuable enough to merit unblocking even the wire content.

  12. Here’s the challenge I see. A visitor from Orlando has little value to advertisers on Steve’s site in Augusta, Ga. But that visitor has significant value to advertisers on Anthony’s site back in Orlando.

    Why shouldn’t the Sentinel’s sales staff be able to sell into Morris’s websites for visitors from the Orlando area? And why shouldn’t Morris sales reps be able to sell into the Sentinel’s website for visitors from Morris markets?

    Et cetera, et cetera, for all other news chains.

    I don’t see the value in driving away customers when you could instead build relationships to make money from them.

    Yes, driving them away is logistically simpler. But if the newspaper industry does not build an online advertising system to sell advertisers access to local readers browsing out-of-market news websites, I guarantee that Google will. (And is!)

  13. It seems to me that the discussion here needs to separate the value points. Paid subscribers for news value a community of interest that is, for value, unique or close enough thereto. Marketers pay different prices for “all people” models versus defined targets.
    So far, online values appear often to have no differentiator. That is, all measures are about all people, anywhere. Google is ideal for that.
    Surely if Mr Zell believes he is buying a unique source of value to readers and advertisers, it makes sense to avoid a model that promotes the long tail of undifferentiated value?