September 25, 2022~If you subscribe to any daily-regional newspaper these days, you will see full pages placed by Google touting how they’re “helping local news.”
But if you get a local community newspaper free on your driveway once a week, you will not see Google supporting those newspapers.
The very first sentence of its ad says, “that’s why we support local publishers nationwide with funding and resources that promote innovation, entrepreneurship, and digital transformation.
Translation “we’re helping to put local newspapers out of business by supporting the online growth of digital newspapers and daily-regionals.”
The ad touts how it helped a newspaper grow its digital revenue 30%; 30% percent of what? $100? $1,000?
In any case, it proves the point with its advertising in daily regionals and not local community newspapers; Google is handing money to daily regional newspapers while it steals news from local newspapers without giving the industry a dime.
