Why using dollars to measure the value of news makes little sense

The global news director of AFP speaks up on Big Tech, the dangers of populism and how he remains optimistic for news telling in the future

This newsletter is close to my heart. It concerns the debate between dollars and sense.

It’s become the trope of tech to argue that news has no value. It correctly points to data that says news doesn’t drive page views, so therefore lacks ad value.

The debate soon turns circular and toxic as passionate advocates from news and tech, who have two very different world views, clash over definitions and detail.

Is the value generated by the story, or by people talking about it? Is the conversation owned by a platform, or by the journalism that reported it? And round it goes.

How it ends though is well known. Big Tech eventually throws its hands up in frustration and walks away knowing that tomorrow will be just fine.

For news, though, not so much.

Hence the situation today where Big Tech generates the income of the entire news industry every three days, and pays little for the coverage that makes sense of the world

Many industry people and governments have tried to tempt me to their side, to go …