Andrew Holden: News Publishers' Association Public Affairs Director explains the impact of tech companies backing away from New Zealand media

One expert says Paul Goldsmith's proposed new media bill could jump-start conversations about the future of news content in New Zealand.

The Broadcasting Minister plans to implement an amended version of Labour's Fair Digital News Bargaining Bill, forcing tech giants to pay for news content.

News Publishers' Association Public Affairs Director Andrew Holden says it's worth discussing potential options with companies like Google and Meta.

"We know news is of value to them, and what we want to do is sit down with these companies and say - journalism matters in New Zealand, you're getting value out of it, what do you think is a fair payment?"

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
So now the Broadcasting Minister says Facebook may actually well
end up banning New Zealand news content from its sites
site in retaliation against a proposed fair bargaining bill. Once past,
the likes of Google and Facebook will be forced to
negotiate deals with media companies in order to use their content.
So why I asked Paul Goldsmith, the Minister earlier, whether
the tech the tech companies had threatened to ban news

(00:20):
in New Zealand.

Speaker 2 (00:21):
No, they went didy threat. But if they've made it
clear that not very in on this legislation, as has Google, Google,
and so you know, it's a it is quite a
tricky area, but we think imbalances with having this as
a backstop just to encourage those conversations to happen.

Speaker 1 (00:36):
Andrew Holden is the News Publishers Association's Public affairs director
and with us now, Hey, Andrew, Hi, how do you
rate the chances that Facebook will ban news here?

Speaker 3 (00:46):
Ah, It's a bit difficult to say at this point.
I mean, they've certainly done or threatened that in Australia,
and they've done it in Canada. I mean, I think
the point about this legislation is it gives us an
opportunity to sit down with them and have a conversation
and a negotiation. There's no need from our perspective to
go to that kind of nuclear response at this point.
We think that news brings value to Facebook. We just

(01:08):
want to have a conversation with them about it.

Speaker 1 (01:10):
Okay, that may be what I mean. You might want
to be reasonable, but they're not that reasonable. If we
end up in the same situation that is possible in Australia.
Certainly has happened in Canada where you've got this, you know,
them pulling out of the news and there as therefore
as a result, reduced traffic and it particularly hits the
smaller publishers hard. Is it worth it to end up

(01:31):
in that position for what little money we will get
from Google?

Speaker 3 (01:36):
Well, you're talking about a little money from Google and
little money from Facebook. I mean between the two of them, and.

Speaker 1 (01:40):
So no money from Facebook Andrew they walk away. They
really hurt the traffic that goes through to the websites.
You're getting some from Google, but you lose Facebook and
all of their platform altogether. Is it worth it?

Speaker 3 (01:53):
Well, we lose the platform potentially for news, but you know,
there are always alternatives for small publishers, and certainly the
MPa is one of those who are more than happy
to talk to those small community or ethnic publishers around
what might be alternatives for them. I mean fundamentally, what
we're talking about here, though, is what is a fair
payment for the use of journalism content by these tech

(02:16):
companies And and we know they're using it. We've done
research recently that shows them more than ninety percent of
key wes are going to who want to keep up
to date with news every single day and search and
social media are a key places that they go through
to find that information. So we know news is of
value to them. And what we want to do is
sit down with these companies and say journalism matters of

(02:37):
New Zealand, you're getting the value out of it, what
do you think is a fair payment to us. That's
that's fundamentally the point behind this.

Speaker 1 (02:43):
I would have thought that news media had a better
argument with the likes of Facebook and Google using AI
because there is no I mean, you know, there is
some benefit in news media being on a platform like
Google because you get the text traffic, you get the
traffic coming through, you also get you there's some benefit
of being on a platform like Facebook because you get
the traffic coming through.

Speaker 2 (03:01):
But there is.

Speaker 1 (03:02):
Absolutely no benefit to news media and those guys scraping
their content for AI. Are you disappointed that Paul Goldsmith's
not doing anything about the AI.

Speaker 3 (03:12):
No. I mean, we certainly asked him to suggest that
a legislation call it out. But we're confident that this legislation,
because it doesn't specify the particular companies that are covered
by it, that it will in fact cover those AIS.
So Chat GPT, as far as we're concerned, will be
covered by this legislation. We know that they're using New
zeal And journalism, they're using it to train their engines.

(03:35):
So we're looking forward to sitting down and having a
conversation with them and saying, we know you're getting venue
out of this. It's time for you to pay for
the venue that you're getting from it.

Speaker 1 (03:44):
Does David Seymour have a point that it doesn't. This
doesn't actually fundamentally deal with the problem, which is that
the news media is offering up a product we no
longer want to consume.

Speaker 3 (03:56):
Well, I mean he's wrong on that respect. I mean
he's talking about something completely different. The issue here is
that the money is being the digital advertising is being
scooped up by these digital tech companies. They're getting venue
from news and they're not paying for it. What he's
talking about is something fundamentally different. We don't have an
issue with the audience in New Zealand. As I said

(04:17):
that research is showing that ninety percent of kiwis are
going and looking for information every day. The same research
shows that they trust their local news content providers. Here
in this country, over eighty percent of kiwis actually trust
the local journalists who tell them what's happening if there's
flooding in Lisbon or on earthquake in christ Church. So
that's not the issue here. The issue is a marketing balance.

(04:40):
It's not the quality of the news, and it's not
the fact that the keywis want to be kept up today.

Speaker 1 (04:44):
Andrew, it's always good to talk to you. Thank you
so much for your time. That's Andrew Holden Holden, who's
the Public AFEES director at the News Publishers Association.

Speaker 2 (04:51):
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