Venkaiah calls for revenue-sharing model between tech giants and traditional media

Vice-President M Venkaiah Naidu on Friday stressed on the need to work out a revenue sharing model between technology giants and the traditional print media.

Delivering the MV Kamat Memorial Endowment Lecture on ‘Journalism: Past, Present and Future’, organised by Manipal Academy of Higher Education (MAHE), through virtual mode, Naidu said: “The information and reports generated by the print media at substantial cost is being hijacked by the social media giants. This is unfair. Some countries are taking measures to ensure revenue sharing by the social media giants with the print media.

“We, too, need to take a serious look at this problem and come out with effective guidelines or laws to enable print media get their share from the huge revenues of the technology giants. Appropriate revenue sharing models need to be evolved for the survival of traditional media.”

Technology giants have emerged as the algorithmic gatekeepers of information and the web has emerged as the main vehicle of distribution of information and news.

Expanding social media

Democratisation and decentralisation that followed the rapid expansion of social media enabling freedom of expression is welcome, but the world is witnessing the downside of it in the absence of self-regulation and protocols. In this era of saturated information and over abundance of news, the very news gets devalued, he said. There is a need to ensure sanity in the use of rapidly expanding social media outlets, given the implications for social harmony, common good, peace and national security. Freedom of expression doesn’t mean unfettered outburst of anger and hate against each other that may lead to chaos, he said.

Expressing concerns over yellow journalism and journalism based on taking up false crusade, he said both, which are aimed at increasing readership and viewership, should be avoided.

Advertisement revenue is the key for the viability of any media organisation. But with the mushrooming of media outlets and the shrinking revenue pie, the traditional norms and principles of journalism are being compromised, leading to serious consequences, he said.

Urging the media to focus on the development taking place on various fronts, he said the Governments are the principle catalysts of this change for the better.

Media is facing a crisis situation for various reasons, including technological disruption.

The major challenge is to handle the information explosion and the attendant challenges to journalism in an effective and organised manner. The Hindu BusinessLine