Google earned $4.7 billion through the work of news publishers through search and Google News in 2018 according to a study by the News Media Alliance, and the alliance says the journalists who create that content deserve a share.
"They make money off this arrangement," David Chavern, president and chief executive of the alliance, told The New York Times about the study, which will be released on Monday. "There needs to be a better outcome for news publishers."
The alliance represents more than 2,000 newspapers nationally, including The New York Times, and it noted that the $4.7 billion Google takes in is almost as much as the $5.1 billion the U.S. news industry earned overall digital advertising last year.
However, the News Media Alliance said Google may be making even more because the study didn't count the value of personal data the social media giant collects on consumers when they click on articles.
The study was made public before a House subcommittee hearing Tuesday concerning the relationships between big tech and the media, and Chavern said he hopes the study will help spur the Journalism Completion and Preservation Act.
The bill gives publishers a four-year antitrust exemption to allow them to bargain with online platform owners about splitting revenues. The measure has bipartisan support in both the Senate and House.
Google didn't respond to a request for comment. The alliance based its report on research from Keystone Strategy, which relied on a statistic made public in 2008 when a Google executive said Google News at that time brought in $100 million. The figures have likely grown, as about 40 percent of trending searches on the site is about the news.
Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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