Facebook Inc. is getting into the news business and paying publishers because it considers it imperative to support a democratic society.
“It’s no secret the internet has really disrupted the new business model. I just think every internet platform has a responsibility to fund and form partnerships for news,” Facebook FB, +0.81% Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg said Friday in an hour-long “fireside chat” in New York with News Corp CEO Robert Thomson.
“I care about giving people a voice,” Zuckerberg said. “At the end of the day, in order for that to be valuable, there needs to be a strong and free press … and have that at scale.”
Facebook News Tab, a new section being offered initially in the U.S. to a test group of about 200,000 users and up to 30 million over the next several years, culls content from about 200 news publishers — including News Corp’s Wall Street Journal, Fox News Channel, Bloomberg, NPR and the New Yorker. Zuckerberg said the deals are structured to pay partners based on the amount and value of the content they provide. The Silicon Valley company has pledged to spend $300 million over the next three years to support local news providers.
Facebook’s decision to financially support journalism “is a powerful precedent that will echo around editorial departments,” Thomson said.
“I do have one question: What took you so long?” Thomson quipped at the beginning of the conversation. Zuckerberg responded, “After the last few years, I now have an appreciation that that is the nicest thing he could have said, because that means that he thinks we actually did something good.”
Another pointed question is whether the social-networking giant’s digital news rack — featuring content from The Wall Street Journal, USA Today and others — can restore credibility to a company and vast social platform that is widely viewed with skepticism.
Zuckerberg arrived in New York shortly after being grilled by members of the House Financial Services Committee on Wednesday, on everything from Facebook’s problematic Libra cryptocurrency project to its decision not to fact-check political ads on its site. On at least one occasion, the company’s co-founder acknowledged its tattered reputation.
Read more: Facebook’s Zuckerberg faces Capitol Hill heat on Libra, elections fraud
Indeed, 62% of American adults say social networks have too much control over the mix of news they see, and 55% said the role social-media companies play results in a worse mix of news, according to a Pew Research Center survey in July.
Facebook now joins forces with a media industry that has suffered significantly because of lost ad revenue to Facebook and Alphabet Inc.’s GOOGL, +0.41% GOOG, +0.33% Google division.
Shares of Facebook were up slightly Friday at $187.89, and have risen 43% this year. The company is scheduled to report its third-quarter results on Oct. 30.
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