With the powerful influence of technologies, large social platforms within the digital ecosystem have managed to take control of the distribution of news or extra content produced, as their own raw material.
There is the advantage that, based on complex and expensive algorithms, they decide what to publish, where and to whom they are destined so they can, above all, monopolize the advertisings placed on the websites of digital journals, without them receiving a “fair and reasonable” share of the income pie.
The control and extraordinary advertising benefit that favors large providers has begun to reveal the progressive loss of competitiveness of traditional media to monetize content, becoming a species of subsidiaries of very few companies that were not born as entities of the free press.
To tackle this inequality or, at least, make bearable a transparent and proportional relationship between those who produce news and those who control the distribution, according to user preferences, topics and targets, about eighteen journalistic companies in Latin America have just signed a statement in defence of their interests. Led by the Inter-American Press Association, groups representing more than 40,000 media in the Americas, they have made a call on content provider companies to offer fairer compensation for the use of this raw source.
This means that the wind of a trend that is gaining strength in other latitudes has already reached this hemisphere, where laws that favor a better distribution of income have been approved, 80 percent of which remain in the coffers of large suppliers.
- Translated from Spanish by Randy Rodriguez.
Director's Thoughts 