The Indiana Publisher

INSIDE Publisher The Indiana Volume 83, Issue 3 • March 2018 Published on second Thursday monthly In memoriam: Carrol McConaha Rhodes Page 2 Pete Van Baalen: Choosing the right words assists ad sales, Page 3 Hotline: Steve Key answers your legal, access questions. Page 7 Protect the news from Google, Facebook A partial exemption from antitrust laws would help publishers, readers Better Newspaper Contest entries due May 25 By David Chavern News Media Alliance The news business is suffering, but not because people don't want news. They do—more than ever. The problem is that the money generated by news audiences fl ows mostly to Google and Facebook , not to the reporters and publishers who produce excellent journalism. The Duopoly now captures 83% of all digital ad revenue growth and 73% of U.S. digital advertising, according to a CNBC report. As a result, newspapers' online audience growth does not produce revenue to match. According to data from Pew, newspaper advertising revenue fell from $22 billion in 2014 to $18 billion in 2016 even as web traffi c for the top 50 U.S. newspapers increased 42%. Local news is most at risk. As print circulation declines, community news publishers have the hardest time adapting to the ever-changing demands of Facebook and Google algorithms. We think of "fake news" as a national phenom- enon, but in the absence of a workable news business model, wild rumors and conspiracy theories could become more infl uential at the local level, too. Tech savvy, digital-only publishers are also struggling. BuzzFeed CEO Jonah Peretti said in December that Google and Facebook are "paying content creators far too little for the value they deliver to users," and that "this puts high-quality creators at a fi nancial disadvantage, and favors publishers of cheap media." Google and Facebook have become the primary and de facto regulators of the news business, Rules and contest information for the annual BNC will be mailed out and available online the week of March 12. This year, two new categories were added: 19. Best Portrait and 36. The Nina Mason Pulliam Award for Environmental Journalism. The deadline for entries is 5 p.m., Friday, May 25. Awards will be presented at the luncheon following the annual Newsroom Seminar on Saturday, Sept. 15 at the Indianapolis Marriott North. Questions? Contact Shawn Goldsby at (317) 803-4772, sgoldsby@hspa.com. HSPA attempting to determine rational for secrecy in bill language Commentary See Protect, Page 2 Chavern The Journalism Competition and Preservation Act of 2018 is a low-regulation, pro-market way to unleash the news industry's negotiating power. Legislative Update Curious language was added to a couple of bills in their fi nal committee hearings. H.B. 1315 deals primarily with fi nancially distressed government units. Currently, school systems in Muncie and Gary have been designated as distressed. The Senate Appropriations Committee, chaired by Sen. Ryan Mishler, R-Bremen, added language that creates a process where the executive director of the state Distressed Unit Appeal Board (DUAB) can reach out to a superintendent and school board to assess the school district's fi nancial condition. The concept is that DUAB can give a school district that is trending down fi nancially an opportunity to receive help from a "technical assistance team" to correct its fi scal course to avoid being placed on a state watch list or get hit See Bills, Page 8 Indiana Journalism Hall of Fame luncheon set for May 19, see page 6

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